


A Kingdom by the Light Divided

by popliar (littlerhymes)



Category: Checkmate - The Boyz (Road To Kingdom Performance), The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Assassination, Chess Metaphors, Duelling, Feuds, M/M, Polyamory, Royalty, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Tea, Theatre, War, and there was only one bed, everyone lives no one dies, mostly based on checkmate but with a few elements from reveal catching fire, sensitive poetry jocks, there was only one dungeon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28721634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/popliar
Summary: "The story begins with a fall. There are no witnesses, though some later claim to have heard a scuffle, a cry, a splash. No one sees it but soon everyone knows that Kim Sunwoo, the precious younger cousin of Lee Juyeon, has fallen to his death from a watchtower."Two families feud over the fate of the kingdom. (A Checkmate AU.)
Relationships: Bae Joonyoung | Jacob/Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae, Bae Joonyoung | Jacob/Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Lee Juyeon/Son Youngjae | Eric, Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Lee Juyeon, Lee Juyeon/Son Youngjae | Eric
Comments: 36
Kudos: 67





	A Kingdom by the Light Divided

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [Checkmate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gH7iAppykc&ab_channel=MnetK-POP) for existing lol.
> 
> Thank you to proteinscollide for being the best beta reader and once again dragging me into another fandom. The fall was slow then incredibly rapid... lol...
> 
> Thank you also to flywithturtles for being the most patient listener!!! LOOK AT ALL THESE BOYZ!!!!

**White Knight**

The story begins with a fall.

There are no witnesses, though some later claim to have heard a scuffle, a cry, a splash. No one sees it but soon everyone knows that Kim Sunwoo, the precious younger cousin of Lee Juyeon, has fallen to his death from a watchtower. They trawl the river for days, Juyeon looming grimly at the prow of a boat from dawn 'til dusk as his guards search the waters and the surrounding riverbanks, but the body is never found.

Almost immediately afterwards, the rumours begin.

Youngjae is in a teahouse when he first hears of it. He's drinking wine with his friends, while a musician strums a bipa and sings. None of them have a care in the world, least of all Youngjae, until he hears someone say - 

"Everyone knows Lee Jaehyun did it. Him and his people, they're the ones that killed Kim Sunwoo." The man who says it spits. "Pack of animals."

Youngjae gets to his feet. His friends hush, and Daehwi tugs at his sleeve, trying to get him to sit down again. But Youngjae won't be stopped.

"Say that again," Youngjae says, squaring up to the other man and his table of cronies. "Say that again to my face."

The man looks him up and down contemptuously. "Yeah? And who are you?"

Youngjae pulls back his cloak enough to show the wolfshead embroidered into his collar. "I'm Jaehyun's sworn brother, you piece of trash." He throws what remains of his wine in the man's face, and follows it with his fist. 

Youngjae and his friends win the fight, but the teahouse bears the brunt of it. Afterwards he sits down carefully and pats at his split lip gingerly with his sleeve. He winces, from the sting and the ache of his bruised body, but also at the sight of the overturned tables and chairs, the spilled drinks, the room empty when it should be full and buzzing with customers. Jaehyun is not going to be happy.

"Here," someone says, and offers him a clean white handkerchief. It's the musician, the one who was singing so merrily before everything went down. He looks at Youngjae with mischievous dark eyes and waves the handkerchief at him again when he doesn't immediately accept it. "You need it more than I do."

"Thanks," Youngjae says, and dabs carefully at his lip; the cloth comes away bloody. "You know the owner here? Are they still around?" 

"Think they went to fetch the watch," the player says, a little apologetically. "You'd better get going." 

"I will. Thanks...?"

"Kevin," says the player, with a neat little bow. "At your service." 

"Thank you." Youngjae heaves himself to his feet and starts herding his friends towards the door. "If you see the owner, let him know he'll be compensated. Lee Jaehyun's people don't leave debts unpaid." 

"Noted," Kevin says, brightly. 

"Oh," Youngjae says, just before he steps outside. He grins. "And I liked your music, by the way. Sorry we interrupted your song."

Kevin bursts out laughing. "Thanks!"

But that's about as much joy as Youngjae gets out of the incident, because Jaehyun is even angrier than he expected. He summons Youngjae to his study, sends away the servants, and then yells until his voice is hoarse. Youngjae just stands there and takes it, until Jaehyun finally pauses for breath. 

"Why are you so angry?" Youngjae says stubbornly. "We won."

"You won?" Jaehyun slaps the table with an open hand and then stands, pacing the length and width of the room. 

The study is a place that visitors never see, a comfortable, well-used room where Jaehyun can hunker down with his books and papers. By daylight the room is pleasant, overlooking the gardens, warm with sunlight. But now, in the dark and in the face of Jaehyun's fury, it feels like the most unwelcoming place in the entire house. 

Jaehyun stops pacing and points at Youngjae, his finger prodding at Youngjae's chest. "You come home looking like something a bear mauled, and you tell me that you won? Not to mention how much I'll be paying the teahouse owner for damages. Go on, Youngjae, tell me how you 'won'." 

"You're angrier at me than you are about what they said!" Youngjae says, yelling back at last. "They said you killed him. That we killed him. You think I was going to let him get away with that? Hyung, I did it for your honour!"

"I didn't ask you for it," Jaehyun snaps. "You think I don't know what they're saying? Of course I do." The anger dies out of him, quick as that, like a candle doused. He shakes his head, his mouth drawn tight. "You can't fight the whole city, Youngjae."

Youngjae lunges forward and hugs him tight, until Jaehyun pushes him away gently. "Don't start fights on my account, alright? Now go get cleaned up." 

When he leaves, Jaehyun is back at his desk, scribbling in his papers again, a frown etched into his brow.

There was a time when Jaehyun used to laugh - Youngjae remembers him having the loudest laugh of all, the one who'd light up the room with a joke and a smile. 

But that was before the war.

*

Youngjae doesn't start any more fights after that, but that doesn't mean he doesn't fight. Soon everyone knows that if Jaehyun's people and Juyeon's people meet in the street, then nothing can stop them from brawling.

Things reach their worst when one of Juyeon's men calls Youngjae out in a duel. He's not quite sure how it starts. He's drinking with his own group at an inn when Youngjae feels a prickling in his back and turns to see the other man staring daggers at him. 

The man is handsome enough, soft-voiced - perhaps he'd be friendly under other circumstances. But he comes over to Youngjae and accuses him of disrespecting Kim Sunwoo's name, completely out of hand, as though he's spoiling for a fight. Youngjae naturally denies it and that's when things get heated. Youngjae raises his voice, the other man lowers his tone, and next thing he knows they're both out in the square with their people gathered around them.

Daehwi says urgently, "But that's Juyeon's right hand man - Bae Joonyoung." 

"I don't care what he's called," Youngjae says, shrugging off his cloak and throwing it to the ground in a fury. "I'm going to fucking run him through."

"Choose your second," Joonyoung calls, from the other side of the square. "Or do you admit your fault?"

"I fucking admit nothing," Youngjae yells back. Then he turns back to Daehwi. "Are you with me or not? Because I'm doing this with or without you."

Daehwi covers his eyes briefly, but he nods his head. "Fine. Fine. But when I drag your corpse back to Jaehyun-hyung..."

"Please. I'm not losing tonight," Youngjae scoffs, drawing his sword.

Youngjae's never been to war. He's not like Jaehyun, who became a man on the battlefield. He was too young, too green, so he waited out the war at home, training ceaselessly for a day that never came. 

Peace was declared before Youngjae could go to battle, but not before Youngjae's mother died fighting in it, and Jaehyun's father too. Jaehyun went away an heir and came back head of the household, bearing both his father's and Youngjae's mother's swords by his side. 

"I'm sorry," Jaehyun said, holding Youngjae as he sobbed. He'd wiped Youngjae's tears and promised, hand pressed to his heart: "You're not alone. You'll never be alone. We'll be each other's family now. Got it?" 

Youngjae would die for him in a heartbeat... But not tonight. 

He's never been to war, but he's sharp and skilled and deadly with a blade. Bae Joonyoung is stronger, broader, and Youngjae has to begrudgingly admit they're well matched. Joonyoung even draws first blood, with a slash on Youngjae's upper arm. 

But then Youngjae recovers, presses forward, fast with his feet and faster with his sword, and Joonyoung stumbles just a little in the moonlight. Quick as that, Youngjae strikes, and the blade flies from Joonyoung's hand - 

"Guards," someone calls. One of Joonyoung's people, or maybe Youngjae's. "Guards on the way!" From nearby, they can hear the sound of hoofbeats on cobblestones. 

Youngjae curses. He can't afford to be caught, not now when the watch is just itching for an excuse to throw him behind bars. He tips Joonyoung's chin up with the tip of his blade, just a little, just enough so that when their eyes meet they both know Youngjae won. They don't speak. Joonyoung looks back at him, eyes blazing, conceding nothing - refusing even now to admit that he was wrong.

Youngjae sneers and lowers his sword, kicks Joonyoung's blade back to him, then very deliberately turns his back and walks away.

Daehwi rushes up with his cloak as he walks away. "What are you waiting for? You think now is the time to pose? We have to run!" Youngjae doesn't protest, and lets himself be dragged away.

The square is empty within moments.

Youngjae thinks that's the end of it until two days later when Jaehyun calls him again to his study.

"The king summoned me today," Jaehyun says abruptly.

"What did he want?" Youngjae says warily, taking a seat. The king never summons Jaehyun unless there's something wrong. 

"He summoned Lee Juyeon too," Jaehyun says, lightly, so lightly that it must mean trouble. "The king told us both to keep our houses in order. Said if we couldn't do it, he'd do it for us. Do you have anything to say to that?"

Youngjae slowly shakes his head.

Jaehyun stares him down. "Youngjae. Did you or did you not engage one of Juyeon's men in a duel two nights ago?" 

"Yes, but I didn't start it, I swear," Youngjae says defensively. "He's the one who came at me!"

"It still takes two to make a fight, Youngjae," Jaehyun says. He's not furious, not like he was the last time, but the disappointment in his eyes hurts more than the yelling did. "What if you'd been injured? How could I live with that?" he says. "Please. Don't make me ask you again. And don't make the king ask me again."

"I wouldn't have lost - but I know," Youngjae says, head down. "I know." The king hates Jaehyun, always has. He'll seize on any excuse to make Jaehyun's life more difficult.

Youngjae stays home, living quietly, until boredom defeats him and his resolve breaks about a week later. At least this time, Youngjae goes alone. He leaves his mother's sword at home and fastens his cloak with a plain pin rather than his wolfshead brooch. Now he could be anyone, any young handsome man from a rich family who just wants to have a good time. 

But where? His feet take him back to his favourite teahouse, the one that he trashed that night in the first brawl, and he hesitates. 

In a moment of perfect serendipity, Kevin walks out the door, bipa slung over his shoulder. His eyes light up in recognition. "Youngjae-ssi!" Kevin bows again, polite as the first time. 

"Kevin-ssi," he says, bowing back. 

"Are you looking to go back inside here?" Kevin says, nodding towards the teahouse. "Don't think it would be a good idea, actually. Your name isn't the most welcome in these parts anymore."

"Didn't think it would be." Youngjae scratches the back of his neck bashfully and then thinks, why not. "Actually, maybe you'll know - any recommendations for a place where they won't know me? Hopefully somewhere the wine's not too bad."

"Aha." Kevin snaps his fingers. "I know just the spot. I'm headed there now, in fact." He pats his bipa. "My next gig."

Kevin leads him to a discreet little teahouse, tucked away in an alley that he would never have thought to walk down. "This is such a little place, so don't worry about anyone recognising you," he says reassuringly. "It looks a bit shabby, but trust me - this is my favourite spot in the city."

As Kevin said, it's a homely place, run by an elderly couple who greet Kevin like a grandson. They take his new friend under their wing too, ushering him to a corner table and setting out an array of snacks before going to prepare his tea. 

Youngjae looks around and sees the other patrons range from older women playing chess, to young students vigorously arguing over a pamphlet, to an artist sketching a tree in the courtyard. There's none of the young bloods and soldiers that occupy Youngjae's usual haunts. Kevin is right - it's not the sort of place anyone Youngjae knows would ever visit. 

He'll probably never come back again, but for now he's satisfied. Trouble, he thinks, will never find him here.

*

"You've been very quiet lately," Jaehyun says, over lunch. "What are you up to?"

"I'm keeping out of trouble, just like you told me!" Youngjae says indignantly. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Yes, but it's not like you to be this meek. Something's happened." Jaehyun narrows his eyes. "You seem so happy lately. Your clothes are better, like you've finally been listening to Younghoon. But you're also a bit absent minded." He leans across the table intently. "Youngjae, are you in love?"

Youngjae chokes on his water and that's pretty much the end of the meal for him. The only upside is that Jaehyun cracks up, crowing "the look on your face!" as Youngjae flees the table. It must be the hardest Jaehyun's laughed in weeks.

"So annoying," Youngjae mutters, as he changes his clothes into something less stained. So what if he's been dressing nicely? What's that got to do with anything? 

It may or may not, Youngjae privately admits to himself, have something to do with the new friend he's made at Kevin's teahouse. 

The first night, he'd lingered over his tea and then his wine, listening to Kevin singing and playing the bipa. Mid-song, he heard someone clearing their throat and looked up to find a stranger standing by his table.

"Do you mind if I sit here? The other tables are full," the man said, a little apologetically. He was tall and handsome, sharp-eyed, but his expression was kind. Youngjae had somehow stammered out a 'yes'.

He said his name was Junghoon and that he wrote poetry. He didn't look like a poet to Youngjae, who felt sure he spied sword calluses on his fingers, but Youngjae wasn't exactly here as himself either so who was he to question it? 

"Call me Eric," Youngjae said, using the name his mother had given him back from when they'd lived abroad. 

"Eric," Junghoon said, the name coming out warm and rough on his tongue. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. 

It was really too unfair, Youngjae thought, flushing as he looked down at his wine. But he ordered another and decided to stay a little longer. For no particular reason.

Youngjae came back to the little teahouse several times after that. Sometimes Junghoon wasn't there, and Youngjae would drink his tea and listen to Kevin play and then leave without lingering. And sometimes Junghoon was, and they'd sit together, talking or writing or in comfortable silence, long into the evening. They'd dropped the formalities soon enough, and he was 'Junghoon-hyung' to Youngjae now. Sometimes Junghoon would read him a fragment of poem, very quietly and very shyly, and Youngjae would want to die on the spot.

He guessed Junghoon must be a retired soldier, probably wounded in the war and pensioned off thereafter. He spoke like a gentleman and those calluses on his hands were for sure from a sword, not a pen or a plough. Once he suggested as much and Junghoon admitted it without demur. 

"I saw a lot of things in the war," he said, closing his hand into a fist. "Things I wish I'd never seen."

"Do you wish you could forget?" he said, thinking of Jaehyun's haunted eyes and sleepless nights in the weeks and months after he came home.

"No," Junghoon says at last, somewhat to Youngjae's surprise. His gaze seems to turn inwards. "Some things need to be remembered." 

Youngjae wished he could reach out, fold his hand over Junghoon's, in some kind of gesture of comfort, to show how much he cared. He took another drink instead.

Of course, nothing could happen between them. Nothing of substance anyway - Junghoon was a former soldier who spent his pension on tea and ink, and Youngjae was the next in line to Jaehyun's title. Junghoon didn't even know Youngjae's real name. 

Youngjae keeps coming back to the teahouse anyway, for the tea, and the music, and for Junghoon, even though it would be better if he didn't get too close. It would probably be better if he stopped this silly game altogether, before he took a step he couldn't take back.

Then someone else puts an end to it all for him.

One evening, they leave the teahouse together. It is not too late, and the streets are still quite busy. Lately they have been lingering over these parting moments. They'll walk out and then stand together in the street, neither of them wanting to be the first to walk away.

"Keep warm," Junghoon says, when they finally run out of things to say. He tugs the collar of Youngjae's cloak closed a little more firmly, and when Youngjae looks down, blushing again, he taps Youngjae's nose with his finger. Youngjae looks up again startled, and Junghoon just laughs. "Cute," he says, with that eye-crinkling smile that makes Youngjae's heart beat too fast.

And then Junghoon sees something over his shoulder and suddenly his expression changes. "Eric," he says, low and urgent, and his hand goes down to his sword. "Get out of the way," he says, trying to shove Youngjae behind him. 

Youngjae turns, just in time to see the blade as it goes right through him. It's so shocking that he cannot even scream. At first there is no pain - and then there is nothing but.

"This is for Kim Sunwoo," spits the man in black who's stabbed him, right before Junghoon cuts off his head.

And that's the last thing Youngjae knows.

*

**Black Bishop**

Joonyoung hears a commotion in the yard and glances out the window to see Juyeon stumbling in, carrying an unconscious boy in his arms. Both Juyeon and the boy are covered in blood. Joonyoung's up fast enough to knock the chair over.

"Get a doctor, quickly," Juyeon says roughly, laying the boy down on a table in the great hall. "The blood's not mine."

The head housekeeper dashes off to do so, while other servants rush about with hot water and bandages, but in the midst of the madness Juyeon catches Joonyoung by the arm and says in a low, urgent voice, "Outside, there's a cart. Pay off the driver and bring in the body from the back."

"The _what_?" Joonyoung says.

"The body," Juyeon says, glancing back at the table, "of the man who tried to kill Eric."

For the first time Joonyoung looks, truly looks, at the boy. He's ghost-white from blood loss but Joonyoung recognises his face without a doubt. How could he forget the haughty tilt of his chin after the boy had disarmed him? Though there's none of that arrogance now, unconscious as he is, dying as he might be.

"Juyeon, this is - his name's not Eric. You know who this really is, right?" Juyeon just stares at him blankly. "This is Sohn Youngjae, Lee Jaehyun's Youngjae, his sworn brother."

"This -" Juyeon looks stunned. "But I've never seen him at court."

"He doesn't go to court, Jaehyun keeps him out of all that, like a little prince. Juyeon," he says, softly but firmly, "if this boy dies here, it could be war between our houses."

To die in a duel is one thing, but to be stabbed in the back - that's cause for a blood feud.

"If he dies here..." Juyeon repeats bleakly, and then stops. He looks back at Joonyoung. "Go. Retrieve the body, pay off the driver. It's even worse than you think, but if this is truly Sohn Youngjae, then it makes a kind of sense too. Hurry," he says, and pushes Joonyoung away.

 _How can it possibly be worse than this_ , Joonyoung thinks to himself as he heads into the street with two of his most trusted guards. 

A grizzled old farmer is waiting with his horse and cart. He looks nervous and ready to leave at any moment, so Joonyoung bows and thanks him, pays him with a generous purse of silver, and then hurries to the back of the cart. 

The farmer throws back the tarpaulin and even though he's expecting a body, Joonyoung still gasps. But he swallows, wrapping up the body and its dismembered head back up into the tarpaulin, and after bowing again to the farmer he and the guards haul the load inside. 

They take the body to the cellar, and under the light of a lantern Joonyoung finally understands what Juyeon means that it's 'even worse' than it seemed. The dead man is dressed in Juyeon's house colours, and his family's hound crest is embroidered at the man's cuffs and collar. The dagger that did the deed has the same hound engraved into the hilt. 

If Youngjae dies, the feud between their houses will turn into a blazing fire, and Joonyoung can only conclude that's exactly what someone wants.

"Not a word to anyone about this," Joonyoung says to the guards. He locks the door to the cellar, and pockets the key.

He goes upstairs again and finds the great hall empty, so he heads further into the house. In one of the bedrooms, one Juyeon usually keeps for visiting family, he finds Juyeon and the doctor talking in low tones over Youngjae's still form.

Juyeon looks up at his entrance and quickly draws close, leaving the doctor to go back to Youngjae. "You saw the body?" he mutters, and Joonyoung nods. They don't need to speak to draw the same conclusion. 

"Is he...?" Joonyoung trails off, his glaze sliding over to the bed.

"The doctor says," Juyeon says, and he stops, swallows. "She says she doesn't know if he'll make it. If he lives out tonight, then he has a good chance." He leaves the rest unsaid, turning away to run a trembling hand through his hair. He's shaking, Joonyoung realises, and though he's washed his face and hands he's still dressed in his bloody clothes.

"What can I do?" Joonyoung says, grasping his shoulder. "How can I help?"

Juyeon seizes his hand like a lifeline. "Lee Jaehyun," he says. "If Eric - if Youngjae - if he dies tonight, Jaehyun should be here. Can you go to him, please? Bring him back here, in secret, if you can." 

Go into the house of the man whose sworn brother had tried to kill him, with the news that said brother might be on death's door? Why not. Joonyoung braces himself, nods, says, "I'll ready my horse."

"Thank you," Juyeon says, with obvious relief. "I'd go myself, but -"

"But you don't want to leave him," Joonyoung says softly. "I understand." 

"I'll write a message," Juyeon says, turning away to scrabble for paper and pen. He scrawls something down, seals it with candle wax stamped with his signet ring, and shoves it in Joonyoung's hands. "Please, hyung," he says, "hurry."

For Juyeon's sake, he does.

Joonyoung's reception at Lee Jaehyun's house is frosty. "I have an urgent personal message from Lee Juyeon," he says, handing over the letter with both hands and a bow. 

Kim Younghoon, Jaehyun's right hand man, takes the letter wordlessly, flicking it between his fingers with a bored expression.

"It concerns Sohn Youngjae," Joonyoung says. "It's _urgent_."

Younghoon raises his eyebrow and merely says, "Is it? We'll see." 

He takes the letter and goes, leaving Joonyoung to wait in the antechamber. With the brazier unlit, the room is uncomfortably cool. Soon Joonyoung is pacing, rubbing his hands along his arms against the cold.

Juyeon and Jaehyun knew each other well enough during the war and before, but ever since the peace they've rarely met. Sunwoo's death sharpened the feud between their families, but it didn't start it.

Joonyoung, however, has never met him and seen him only from a distance. During the war, he was still studying at a seminary - as the second son, he had assumed he would live a peaceful, quiet life as a scholar or a priest. But then the war came, and his brother died, and he'd been forced to assume a role he never expected to have.

The door opens with a crash and Jaehyun storms into the room. "Take me to him," he says, without a word of greeting, the letter crushed in his right hand. He barely speaks to Joonyoung, only briefly looks at him, as he mounts his horse and follows Joonyoung into the dark.

When they reach the house, they turn the horses over to the grooms and rush inside. As soon as he enters the bedroom, Jaehyun goes to Youngjae's bedside and sinks to his knees, looking like his heart is broken.

"Tell me everything," Jaehyun says to Juyeon, who leans in the corner with his arms folded tight, eyes still haunted. At least, Joonyoung sees, he's changed out of his bloodied clothes now.

Juyeon hesitates. His eyes cut over to Joonyoung briefly. "Thank you, hyung," he says, gratitude and a clear dismissal in one. 

Joonyoung takes his cue, and closes the door behind him.

As Joonyoung tumbles into bed and sleep, weary from a night where he's crossed the length of the city and back again, he lets himself think what he hadn't dared to think before, which is that Lee Jaehyun in person is more handsome than he'd expected. 

*

Youngjae lives out the night, and the next day too. He wakes the following evening, and is well enough to answer back when Jaehyun angrily tells him he's never allowed to scare him like that ever again. 

"What are you gonna do about it?" Youngjae says, pale as snow and too weak to sit up, but grinning weakly. "Kill me?"

It's the kind of joke Joonyoung would never dare make or even think of making, but Jaehyun just smacks Youngjae's head (very, very softly) and makes as though to wring his neck, which somehow turns into Jaehyun hugging him. 

Jaehyun ruffles Youngjae's hair absently. "I need to go back home soon, keep up appearances. Younghoon's covered for me long enough. But you're still not safe," he says to Youngjae, frowning. "When whoever was after you finds out you're still alive..."

"He can stay here," Juyeon says, softly but with a determination Joonyoung recognises. "He needs time to recover, and it's the last place they'll suspect."

"Here?" Jaehyun opens his eyes wide, blinking a little, so perfectly incredulous that it's insulting. "Here, with you? Lee Juyeon, are you kidding me?"

Juyeon clenches his jaw, takes a deep breath. 

Quickly Joonyoung says, "What does the doctor say?" Jaehyun looks at him, eyes narrowed a little, as though he'd forgotten he was in the room and is now considering what it means that he is. "If it's not safe for him to be moved, then he should stay here."

"Hyung," Youngjae says, tugging on his hand, "Don't I get a say in this too?" Jaehyun looks down at him, frowning. "I trust him. He saved my life, remember?"

"He didn't even know who you were," Jaehyun mutters. "Eric. Bah. What kind of name is Eric?"

"My mother picked that name," Youngjae says indignantly.

"Jaehyun-ssi," Juyeon says, before Jaehyun and Youngjae can truly get stuck into the back and forth that seems to be their usual mode. "Jaehyun-hyung," he says, and the whole room seems to fall completely still.

Joonyoung darts a glance at Jaehyun. His eyes are hidden, looking down at his hand still holding Youngjae's, but the line of his shoulders is like a bow drawn taut.

"Hyung," Juyeon says, quiet but fierce. "You used to trust me. So trust me again. We made a promise -"

"I remember," Jaehyun says sharply, head coming up. Their eyes meet. "Believe me, I've never forgotten. Not for a single day."

He stands abruptly, Youngjae's hand slipping out of his grasp. "Hyung," Youngjae says.

"Hush," Jaehyun says to him. "You're getting what you want." And then to Juyeon, "Fine, Youngjae can stay. Take care of him well, or I'll have your head. In fact, since you'll have Youngjae, I think you should give me something right now in return. Just for surety, you understand how that goes."

"And what would that be?" Juyeon says, relief warring with caution.

Jaehyun gives Joonyoung a sly glance, and then says to Juyeon with a smile that shows off his sharp little teeth, "How about your right hand man?"

*

Joonyoung is given a room in Jaehyun's house, simply but comfortably furnished, with a view into the gardens. After a few minutes spent putting his things away, there are still hours until dinner - he assumes he'll be expected to make an appearance then. 

With nothing else to do, he opens his books, deciding he'll at least have some time to catch up on his studies while he's here.

Although how long he will be 'here' is another question. Until Youngjae is well enough to return home? Until Jaehyun is bored of this game? Or until he realises Joonyoung was the one who challenged Youngjae to a duel, and throws Joonyoung out in a fit of fury?

"Were you intending to just sit there and study all day, Joonyoung-ssi?" Jaehyun says. He leans in the doorway, sounding faintly amused.

Joonyoung looks up, startled. "No," he admits after a moment. He smiles, a little sheepishly. "I wasn't really concentrating."

Jaehyun snorts. "I figured. Come," he says. "Let's walk."

They head out of the house, the gravel crunching underfoot as Jaehyun leads him to the practice grounds where a few guards go through their drills. "A spar?" Jaehyun suggests, stopping by a rack of wooden swords.

Joonyoung is reminded, again, of the unfortunate duel. He wonders if this is a test, if Jaehyun knows more than he lets on. Maybe this is all an elaborate set-up for Jaehyun to exact his revenge. "I'd prefer not to," is all he says aloud.

"Are you always so polite, Joonyoung-ssi?" But Jaehyun doesn't press the point. He just shrugs. "Another time, then." 

Jaehyun takes him further into the grounds, to the gardens. Joonyoung sneaks little sideways glances at Jaehyun's perfect profile as they walk. When he laughs or when he's with Youngjae, Joonyoung thinks, he seems softer, younger. But in silence, he seems very cold, as unapproachable as his reputation.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" Jaehyun says bluntly, after catching him for the second time. He doesn't seem angry, though. Just curious.

"I was just thinking - thinking that you don't have to fear on Youngjae's behalf," Joonyoung blurts out, as though that's what he was planning to say all along and he wasn't just staring at the shape of Jaehyun's nose. "Juyeon won't let any harm come to him, not on his life. He protects everyone he cares about."

"Perhaps. But that still wasn't enough to save Kim Sunwoo, was it?" Jaehyun says, matter of factly.

Joonyoung looks away at that. They walk through the rest of the garden in silence.

*

If Joonyoung thinks all the days spent at Jaehyun's house will be as uneventful as the first, he's disabused of this notion when Jaehyun says he's to accompany him to an audience at court.

"Don't you have any clothes that aren't black?" Jaehyun says, with a click of his tongue, surveying Joonyoung's outfit with a critical eye. 

Black and silver are Juyeon's house colours. Joonyoung says nothing and lets Jaehyun flick through the rest of his wardrobe, tsking. 

"No good," Jaehyun says, giving up. "I'll get Younghoon to arrange something for you."

"Does it matter?" Joonyoung says tentatively as Jaehyun turns to leave. "Do you really need me for this audience?"

"Juyeon will be there," Jaehyun says, as though it's an answer. He looks over his shoulder at Joonyoung, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards. "I want him to see you there. I want him to see you in my colours."

Joonyoung touches the back of his hand to his own red-hot cheek, and is thankful no one can see him.

He wills himself not to flush again when Jaehyun looks him over approvingly later, dressed in the clothes Younghoon found for him. 

"Good," Jaehyun says of his gold-embroidered shirt, his white-trimmed cloak. "You look like you're one of mine now." He beckons Joonyoung closer and pins a wolfshead brooch to his shirt. Close, too close, as he looks Joonyoung in the eye and says, "Now you're perfect." 

It's rare for Joonyoung to come to court. He'd always preferred to stay in the shadows, leaving Juyeon and Sunwoo to take their places in the light. Still, Joonyoung knows enough to stand a step behind Jaehyun, saying nothing, and he knows enough to realise this audience is meant to be uncomfortable.

The king does not offer them a greeting, barely offers them a moment to collect themselves, before he's laying into both Jaehyun and Juyeon. He stops only just short of outright accusing Juyeon of attempting to take Youngjae's life in retaliation for the murder of Sunwoo, and charges them both with disturbing the peace. It's not an audience, but a deliberate humiliation before the entire court. 

Juyeon and Jaehyun both stay silent and stoic, even through to the end when the king announces Juyeon's estates will be heavily fined. Joonyoung sneaks a glance sideways - Juyeon's jaw is visibly clenched tight, but he only bows, and says nothing. Jaehyun simply looks serene.

The king finishes his pronouncement and departs, leaving only a frigid silence in his wake. 

As soon as the doors close behind him, it's as though a spell has broken. Juyeon and Jaehyun stare at each other for a single charged moment before they glance away again. The courtiers and officials that still remain slowly unfreeze and begin to talk and whisper and chat amongst themselves, many of them throwing sideways glances at Jaehyun and Juyeon with varying expressions of pity, disgust, and glee. Some begin to drift closer, but before any can truly approach Jaehyun is already leaving, Joonyoung close at his heels. 

Joonyoung lingers long enough to cast one quick look back at Juyeon - whose head is bowed, shoulders set, already surrounded by courtiers like crows at a kill - but his friend never looks up in return. 

"Jaehyun-ssi," Joonyoung says, catching up.

"Not here," Jaehyun says, not overtly angry, but there's a tension in his voice that Joonyoung would not have detected from his look, that he wouldn't have known to listen for a few days ago.

Before they can collect their horses and weapons and leave, they're stopped in the grounds by a dapper young military officer. "Your Excellency," he says, with a bow and a smile. "I'm glad to have caught you before you left."

"Ju Haknyeon," Jahyeun says rudely. "What do you want?"

"The General would like a word with you, if you'd kindly step this way," Haknyeon says, his smile unchanging, though it's clear it's not really a request.

General Lee Sangyeon is a war hero, as famous in his own right as Jaehyun and Juyeon. Practicing swordplay in the yard, stripped down to just his undershirt, he still seems every part the formidable warrior. When he sees them approaching, he calls a halt to the session (the poor officer he's sparring with looks quite relieved) and puts up his blade. He towels off the sweat from his brow and arms as he saunters his way over.

"Lee Jaehyun-ssi," he says, his tone friendly, his eyes quite hard. Behind him, his officers are quite obviously watching and listening, an eager audience for the show.

Jaehyun bows stiffly but correctly.

"I hear you've been making trouble," Sangyeon says. "Should I be worried?"

"I'm a loyal subject of the kingdom," Jaehyun says coldly. "As I've always been."

"I hope so." Sangyeon smiles. "Because I'm watching you. I hope you know that." His eyes flick over to Joonyoung. "And who is this? A new - companion?" 

The way Sangyeon says the word makes it sound like an insult. Haknyeon, standing to the side, makes a coughing sound that's suspiciously like a laugh. Jaehyun places his hand on Joonyoung's shoulder and squeezes, just lightly, as though reminding him not to react. 

"Just another loyal subject," Jaehyun says, flatly. "Did you have anything else to say to me, General? Or have you had your say?" 

"By all means, be on your way." Sangyeon sketches a mocking bow and stares them down as they depart.

*

They go home in silence, and when they are alone at last in Jaehyun's study - a room he's seeing for the first time - Joonyoung expects Jaehyun to explode in anger. Instead, he seems quite calm.

"Aren't you angry?" Joonyoung ventures, tentatively taking a seat by Jaehyun's desk. The desk is covered in books and papers, the stack closest to him weighed down by a glass paperweight in the shape of a bear. He picks it up absently. "Sangyeon was baiting you."

"We've known each other a long time," Jaehyun says with a shrug. "I knew what to expect from him. If I'm out of favour with the king, then I'm out of favour with him too. So it goes." 

"And the rest of it? The audience with the king? You can't possibly be as calm as you seem." 

"Oh, so is that what you've heard about me?" Jaehyun says, with a tilt of his head. "That I always lose my temper? That I can't hold my tongue? You think I lack self-control?" 

"No, not exactly, I mean -" Joonyoung says, flustered. It is true, however, Jaehyun has a reputation for being blunt.

"Calm down, Joonyoung," Jaehyun says, looking more amused than annoyed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "It's fine. Besides," he says, with a little smirk, "why would I tell you what I really think about all this? What if you run home and tell Juyeon all about it?"

"Of course I wouldn't," Joonyoung says, sitting up straighter. "I'd hold anything you told me in strict confidence. Except," he adds with scrupulous accuracy, "if I thought doing so would cause harm to innocent people or the people I care for, in which case I think I would have to say something."

Jaehyun laughs out loud this time. "Joonyoung," he says, and he leans forward to pluck the little bear paperweight out of his hands, "you're really too good for this world, has anyone ever told you that?"

His eyes are soft and warm and Joonyoung, telling his stupid heart to stop racing, has to remind himself that Jaehyun _just_ said that he was naive, gullible, a fool. 

"It's not a bad thing," Jaehyun says, putting the paperweight back where it belongs, still looking at Joonyoung with that same softness that Joonyoung cannot - should not - trust. "I like it." 

*

Days pass, and Juyeon and Youngjae send them both letters. Or rather, Juyeon sends them both letters, and Youngjae writes to Jaehyun only.

"Juyeon says he's getting much better," Joonyoung offers as they walk through the gardens, as has become their afternoon habit, just as it's their habit to dine together whenever Jaehyun is at home, and to retire to Jaehyun's study and drink a few glasses of wine in the evenings, and to go riding together when the weather is fine. "The doctor says he should be out of bed soon."

"Yeah? Well, I can tell he's better because he's started being a little shit in his letters, just like usual," Jaehyun says, with unmistakable fondness. 

"I'm glad he's recovering well," Joonyoung says, sincerely. "That first night and day were frightening."

"You seem very invested in his recovery," Jaehyun says casually, stopping to pluck a long-stemmed rose from a flowering bush. "Especially for someone who tried to kill him in a duel only a few weeks ago."

Jaehyun keeps walking, before turning to see Joonyoung several steps behind, frozen in his tracks.

"Joonyoung, did you really think I didn't know it was you?" he says, gently chiding. "Younghoon's eyes are everywhere. I knew of it before Youngjae even made it home that very same night."

"I thought - I hoped," Joonyoung says, stammering a little, before he takes a deep breath and says clearly, "I regret the entire incident."

"I admit that the more I get to know you, the more it seems out of character," Jaehyun says, walking back towards him, swishing the rose back and forth in his hand. "Whatever led you to challenge him in the first place?"

"I was grieving," Joonyoung says after a moment. "I loved Sunwoo like a brother, you know. I couldn't believe he was really gone. I was grieving, and angry, so when someone told me that Youngjae was mocking Sunwoo's memory - I snapped."

He'd only gone out that night at the urging of the others. A drink to Sunwoo's memory, they'd said, a way to honour him as he'd wish to be remembered. Sunwoo had always been someone who brought the brightness, with a laconic joke or a wide smile. The inn they'd turned up to that night was one of his favourites, and also one where he'd been a beloved regular. Everyone there had a story to tell. Everyone had been his friend.

"I don't even know who said it - who told us that Youngjae was saying those things," Joonyoung says. "I know now that it wasn't true. Someone was just trying to stir us up, trying to incite a feud between our houses. And I played right into their hands."

He'd spent his whole life practicing patience and forgiveness, and yet in the one moment it could have truly mattered, he'd abandoned his principles. 

"The next time I see Youngjae, when he's well again, I'll ask for his forgiveness," Joonyoung says, taking a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "But I understand if he won't give it. And naturally I also understand if you choose not to forgive me, because I know -"

"Joonyoung," Jaehyun says, standing in front of him now, and he's looking at him once more with that same soft look that makes Joonyoung's heart race, that he's told himself over and again can't really be real. 

But what does it mean, if Jaehyun has known all this time that Joonyoung tried to kill his beloved Youngjae, and yet he still looks at him like this? Joonyoung looks down, until Jaehyun uses the rose in his hand to tip his chin upwards, just enough so that their eyes meet. 

"Joonyoung-ah," Jaehyun says again. 

Jaehyun leans in slowly, slow enough that Joonyoung could move if he wanted to, could turn away if he wanted to. But Joonyoung doesn't. He doesn't want to. 

Jaehyun kisses him softly, pressing the rose into his hand, so their fingers intertwine, the stem pressed beneath their palms. He kisses him again, until they're both breathless.

"Hey," Jaehyun says, his voice a little hoarse, his thumb tracing soft lines next to Joonyoung's mouth. But his expression is rueful, and his next words are like a warning signal. "Don't ask me to forgive you. You're the one who has to forgive me."

"What?" Joonyoung takes a step backwards, just out of Jaehyun's embrace. "Why would I -"

"What if I told you," Jaehyun says, quiet but clear, "what if I told you, Kim Sunwoo was still alive?"

*

**Black Pawn**

Sunwoo wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room. He turns his head and sees a pretty boy applying make-up in front of a mirror, but he's not ready to talk so he hastily closes his eyes again. Slowly, last night comes back to him.

Last night... 

He was alone on the watchtower, he remembers that now, until suddenly he wasn't. Shadows took form, came to life, became a masked man, became two masked men, swords drawn and advancing towards him.

Except then a third shadow came, kicked the sword out of the hand of one and swept the legs out from under the other. Before they could recover, the third man put a knife to his throat and whispered in his ear, _There are three assassins on this tower right now and I'm the only one who doesn't want you to die. So if you want to live, then listen to me and fall. Trust me and fall._

 _What?_ Sunwoo said, but the man was already pushing him back, to the edge of the tower, his back to the water. 

_Ready?_ the man whispered, and Sunwoo wasn't, but he nodded once anyway and the man let go, let him take that last step backwards himself, and he was so fucking scared but it was too late. Then he was in the air and falling, falling, until he plunged underwater and - 

"So you're awake finally," says the boy, turning away from the mirror. 

Sunwoo's eyes start open. He's not in the river. He's not drowning. He's here, still alive, for one more day at least. 

"Well, get up, then," the boy says. He throws some clothes in Sunwoo's direction; they land on Sunwoo's head. "Don't dawdle. I've been up for hours."

"Um," Sunwoo says, plucking a shirt off his face. "And who are you, exactly? We didn't exactly go through introductions last night after you fished me out of the river. All I know is that you're one of Juyeon's people."

The boy huffs a little, blowing hair away from his face. "I'm Chanhee. But you can call me New. And what should I call you?"

"Kim Sunwoo," he says automatically. 

"Wrong," Chanhee says instantly. "Did you forget someone just tried to kill you? You're lying low so forget that name for now. Any name but Sunwoo."

"Umm." He considers it slowly, scratching his hair. "Seonoo?"

"Too close to your real name," Chanhee says dismissively. "Something foreign maybe. Most people in our troupe go by a foreign name. Or something very ordinary, something common."

"Alright, alright." Sunwoo rolls his eyes and starts getting out of bed. Chanhee discreetly turns his head and he starts changing. The clothes are clean, but plain, and not new. "I don't know. Joe?"

"Joe," Chanhee says flatly, face to the wall but Sunwoo can already imagine his expression. "You really want to be called Joe?" He spells out the foreign letters to be sure. "As in J, O, E?"

"Yes," Sunwoo says, to be contrary. "Yes, I absolutely do. Joe. That is my name."

Chanhee sighs, crossing his arms. "Fine." 

He turns around again and inspects Sunwoo critically. He straightens up Sunwoo's collar, combs his hair with a different part, and tells him to wash his face. Then he applies a little make-up around Sunwoo's eyes to subtly change their shape and dabs some colour on his lips, so that when Sunwoo looks in the mirror he looks almost, but not quite, like his usual self - his usual self's half-brother, perhaps. 

Finally Chanhee nods and say, "You'll do."

"Do for what?" Sunwoo says.

Suddenly Chanhee smiles, mischievous as a fairy. "You're the new stagehand and odd jobs boy at our theatre. Your job is doing anything anyone tells you to do. That's your cover. Think you can keep up the act, pretty boy?" Without waiting for an answer, he's already out the door. 

"I'm not a pretty boy," Sunwoo mutters mutinously to himself. "You're the pretty boy." But he follows anyway. What else can he do?

*

There are too many people in the theatre troupe and Chanhee introduces them too quickly for any but a few names to stick on that first morning. 

As Chanhee had said, most of them go by nicknames. Sunwoo remembers Kevin, who is a writer but also plays his bipa in teahouses, and Q, a dimpled dancer. He remembers Nancy the actress, and Ahin, their make-up artist and hairdresser. The rest all pass in a blur. He'll sort them out later.

"We don't exactly make a lot of money," Chanhee explains, as they pull their chairs a little closer together at the crowded coffeeshop. "So most of us take on second jobs."

"What's your second job then?" Sunwoo says. "You're an actor and...?"

"New-oppa doesn't need a second job because he has a lover," Nancy says, covering her smile with her hand. 

Q's not so delicate. He says loudly, giggling, "Yeah, a rich, handsome lover who keeps him in jewels and furs."

Chanhee glares. "Do you see jewels on these fingers?" he says, holding up his slender hands. "Do you ever see me wearing fur?" 

"Alright, not jewels and furs," Kevin chips in. "But he does pay your rent! And he takes you out to nice meals."

They're all so easy with each other, so familiar, as though they've known each other for years. Sunwoo, used to being liked and being known wherever he goes, finds himself in the unfamiliar position of having to introduce himself.

"Joe-ssi is my friend's cousin, he's staying with me for a bit until he gets back on his feet," Chanhee says, patting his arm. "I thought he'd do for any odd jobs we have around the place."

"Thank you, please take care of me," Sunwoo says awkwardly, with a brief nod of his head. "I'll do my best."

"Do you play any instruments?" says a woman whose name he doesn't remember, though he seems to recall she is a drummer. "Our musicians could always use some help."

"What about painting? Carpentry?" someone else says eagerly. "We're shorthanded in the set design department too."

"No," Sunwoo admits. "None. Never." 

Their faces fall a little but Kevin says kindly, as though comforting a child, "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find something you're good at."

Sunwoo realises that although his education may have sufficiently covered swordplay and military strategy, it was sadly lacking when it came to the performing and visual arts. 

He is also, for the very first time, poor. Chanhee covers the cost of his coffee - when Sunwoo thanks him, embarrassed, he simply shrugs it off. "Everyone's been short from time to time, silly," Chanhee says. "I'll pay for you today, and you can pay it forward for someone else, whenever the time comes."

There's no performance tonight, so everyone lingers outside the coffeeshop to chat a little more before they split up. Standing off to the side, Sunwoo sees Chanhee pressing a bit of paper into Kevin's hand with a whispered instruction.

"What was that about?" Sunwoo says as they head back towards Chanhee's lodgings. "With Kevin?"

Chanhee doesn't pretend not to know what he's referring to. "Sending word back to your cousin, of course. Setting his mind at rest. He's got to be worried sick about you."

"So Kevin knows too?" Sunwoo says, eyes wide. "About me, I mean?"

"Oh, no. Kevin has no idea. He drops the letters off at a teahouse and they're picked up by someone else." Chanhee lowers his voice, saying, "He thinks I'm having a secret affair, and that he's helping me pass notes behind my rich lover's back." He laughs.

"Do you even have a lover at all?" Sunwoo says suspiciously. "Or is he made up too?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Chanhee says smugly, skipping ahead so Sunwoo has to jog a little to catch up.

*

Perhaps it's the strangeness of everything, the surrealness of being pushed so instantly and thoroughly out of one life and into another, that stops Sunwoo from realising the gravity of it all until the following night's performance.

He's stationed backstage, supposedly ready to fetch and carry whatever needs fetching and carrying, but mostly just watching as everyone puts their final preparations together, when Kevin bursts into the dressing room.

"Did you hear the news?" Kevin says. "Everyone out there is talking about it. Kim Sunwoo is dead." Someone gasps, and he adds with relish: "Not just dead, but _murdered_."

Sunwoo kicks over a stool in surprise. "Sorry," he says, as everyone's eyes are on him briefly, stooping to pick it up as Kevin goes on with his story and the others all start to chime in.

"Pushed from the tower... Juyeon's guards trawling the river... must have been Lee Jaehyun's people... Dead..."

Sunwoo slips out of the room, feeling sick, wanting air, wanting to be away from there. Chanhee finds him a few minutes later in the back alley behind the theatre, gasping for breath and looking up at the sky. 

"They really think I'm dead," he says, uselessly. Chanhee nods silently. Suddenly anxious, Sunwoo grabs his sleeve. "But Juyeon knows I'm alright, right? The message did get through?"

"It's fine," Chanhee says reassuringly, patting his shoulder. "He knows. Kevin probably has a message back from him by now. I'll tell you as soon as I get it."

"Good," Sunwoo says, letting out a deep breath. "Good."

"Let's go back inside," Chanhee says after a few more moments. "It's nearly showtime and the director must be getting anxious."

Back inside the theatre, the gossip session has ended and everyone is once more buzzing back and forth, ready to bring the play to life. 

Afterwards, when the tale has been told and they've had their applause and their bows and their flowers, they clean up the mess that the audience has left behind and count out everyone's share of coins from the week's meagre takings. Then they drink a while, laugh a little, cry if they have to, before they wake up the next day to start it all over again.

Sunwoo's life of two days ago, of training and sword drills and worrying about how the king will next make his dissatisfaction with Juyeon's house felt, has never seemed more distant. 

*

Sunwoo has been 'dead' for a week when the masked man finds him again.

He is the last to leave the theatre after sweeping the floors that night, and the shadows are long and deep as he locks up and turns to depart. Before he can take more than a few strides, a shadow peels itself away from the side of the theatre and becomes a man. It's so exactly like that time on the watchtower that Sunwoo freezes in his tracks.

"Sunwoo-ssi," says the masked man, stepping into the lamplight, hands spread wide open this time to show that they're empty, no visible weapons. "So you lived."

"Yeah," Sunwoo says, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat where he keeps his knife, taking a step backwards, tensed and ready to fight. "Yeah, I did. Why? Did you change your mind about letting me go?"

The man laughs. His voice is higher than Sunwoo's own, a boyish kind of voice, an almost-familiar voice. Sunwoo wonders what he looks like under that mask. "Not at all. I'm here to give you a message."

"From who?" Sunwoo says.

"From the person who told me to save you, of course," the masked man says. He holds out his hand. "Take this."

It's a simple bracelet, black and white beads strung together. Sunwoo takes it gingerly. 

"This is my token. The price has already been paid in advance. When you're ready to redeem it, you can give it back to me."

"Redeem it how?" Sunwoo says. He is lost, out of his depth. 

"When you decide who you want me to kill," the masked man says lightly, as though it's nothing at all. 

"When I - what?!" Sunwoo says, jaw dropping. But the masked man has already disappeared, turned back into shadow. 

After hesitating, unsure whether he should throw it in the gutter or give it away, eventually Sunwoo slips the bracelet over his wrist and heads home.

*

Days pass, and then weeks. 

Sunwoo spends the first few days at the theatre carrying crates and moving props, sweeping up sawdust, fetching water and food for the cast and crew. He feels like a fool half the time, needing every task to be explained to him twice, but he must not do too badly because when they find out he can read they also ask him to start helping some of the actors go over their lines and to help Kevin copy out scripts. 

At night he sleeps on a pallet in Chanhee's lodgings, and he gets used to waking up in the mornings when Chanhee does (Chanhee helpfully stomps around the room and slams doors and practices his scales at daybreak until Sunwoo gets the idea). 

He never does see Chanhee's rich lover, but there are a few times when Chanhee stays away the entire night and comes back the next morning glowing and satisfied and usually bearing some kind of gift.

"I thought you said he didn't give you jewels," Sunwoo says, watching Chanhee admire the glitter of the pretty new ring on his finger. 

"Hmm?" Chanhee says absently. He looks up. "Oh no, he doesn't give me jewels. I bought this myself." He pauses, and then adds with a sly smile, "With the money he gave me."

From time to time, there are letters delivered via Kevin's unwitting assistance - written in Juyeon's hand, but with no signature, no names at all, couched in the vaguest of terms. _Dearest cousin_ , they usually start before going on to say things like: _Our family's affairs remain unresolved. I'm doing all I can to bring you home, but it's best you stay where you are for now. Stay safe. I miss you._

It's unsatisfying and it's never enough, but the letters are better than nothing. Sunwoo reads and re-reads them until the papers are soft and tearing at the creases.

Enclosed with Juyeon's missives are messages for Chanhee. The first time Sunwoo tries to read one over his shoulder, Chanhee laughs and hands it over directly, for the entire page is covered in nothing but numbers.

"How do you even read this?" Sunwoo says, frowning, turning the paper sideways and then upside down. "Is this some kind of code?" 

"Yes it is, darling." Chanhee takes the piece of paper back again. "So don't trouble your pretty head about it."

Even as distant as he is now from the palace, as far as they stand from the centres of power, it's impossible not to be aware that the city is growing restless. The king has never been beloved, but the war did at least briefly bring the kingdom together. For the duration of the war, the king and the nation's two most powerful houses put aside their disagreements and banded together against their common threat.

Now, three years later, and it seems that their hard-won peace is more fragile than ever. Juyeon's people brawl with Jaehyun's in the street. The king's wrath at both their houses is obvious, while the king himself is as unpopular with the people as he ever was.

Sunwoo has long been aware that the people do not love their king - but it's only now that he realises how deep the resentment runs, how closely it cuts into people's everyday lives. Here, to the people, the king's decisions are not merely strategies to be analysed, but the difference between being hungry or fed, sheltered or homeless. When the king is capricious, when he is greedy and cruel, it means that children go to bed with empty stomachs, that renters are evicted from their homes, that families remember with growing bitterness all their sons and daughters who went to war three years ago and never came home. 

"Lee Jaehyun has more of a rightful claim to the throne than that pissweak king ever did," Sunwoo overhears one woman say in an inn, late one night when the troupe gathers for a post-performance drink.

"Rightful claim? Jaehyun's people are thugs," scoffs one of her companions. "No, it should be Lee Juyeon who is king. Don't you forget all he did in the war."

"Shut up the both of you," hisses a third, more sober companion. "The watch is everywhere, you fools." All of them go quiet after that, and he hears nothing more that night despite how hard he tries to eavesdrop.

Which is probably for the best, for it's true - the watch is everywhere. 

One day on his way to the theatre, Sunwoo sees a milliner's shop smashed, the owner dragged away in chains. "What happened?" he says to Nancy, who he finds watching the scene with a blank, stony face. 

"Sedition," Nancy says flatly. She shakes her head and says, quietly, "Let's go. We're going to be late for rehearsal."

*

"Have you decided on who to kill yet?"

Sunwoo's almost used to it by now, how he'll be walking late at night and a shadow will come to life and speak to him. He doesn't even flinch when the masked man lopes up beside him, keeping pace with him as he walks.

"Not yet," he says, as he always does. 

The man makes a disappointed sound. 

"Aren't you bored of asking me this every week?" Sunwoo says. 

"Of course not. I like visiting you, Sunwoo-ssi," he says, sounding younger than ever. 

"But you already see me every day, Q-ssi," Sunwoo says, and for the first time he thinks he's scored a hit, until the other man starts laughing.

"Finally," Changmin says, and slips off the mask. 

On that first day, after he fell, Q had just been one of the many troupe members that Chanhee had introduced. Sunwoo had been left with an indistinct impression of deep dimples, a dancer's grace, and lightning fast reflexes when someone had knocked over a cup with their elbow.

But then Q, or Changmin, had started to pay special attention to him. Walking him home on the nights when Chanhee couldn't, and hovering around the theatre when Sunwoo was around, even if his own work had finished for the day. 

"I think he likes you," Ahin whispered to him one day, but Sunwoo didn't think that was it. Or not the whole of it, at least. Changmin's presence was constant, but he did not act like a suitor. More like a bodyguard.

"I couldn't just tell you," Changmin says, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "My employer's orders. Had to let you figure it out yourself!"

"So it's not Juyeon?" Sunwoo says, frowning. He's been trying to figure it out. "My cousin didn't hire you?"

"No - Chanhee is Juyeon's man," Changmin says. He smiles, dimpling cutely. "I'm here to represent the other side. You're our shared responsibility. That's the agreement. Couldn't let you get hurt again after we went to the trouble of making sure you didn't die, could we?"

They walk in silence for another few city blocks. Changmin links their arms together as they walk, close and cosy as good friends. But they were not really friends, Sunwoo thought, and despite having figured it out days ago the confirmation still felt more disappointing than he thought it would be. He'd _liked_ having Changmin around all the time, had liked Changmin's teasing and his sunny presence.

But Changmin isn't his friend any more than Chanhee is. They are his keepers, and Juyeon refuses to let him come home, and Sunwoo - who has been raised like a prince, born to lead - is no more than the role he was currently playing. An odd jobs boy, a stagehand, scurrying around behind the scenes while the main players strutted and declaimed in the light.

He is so tired of being kept in the dark.

"What are you thinking about in there?" Changmin says, tapping the side of his temple when they reach Chanhee's lodgings. "You're very quiet today."

"Would you really?" Sunwoo says, pushing away his other thoughts, pushing away Changmin's arm. "Kill someone, I mean. For me."

"Yes," Changmin says seriously. "The debt is owed to you. Name the person and the day."

"Not yet," Sunwoo says, looking away. "Not yet."

Changmin closes the gap between them. "You'll know when it's the right time," he says, and for a moment he's the killer on the watchtower again, the masked man in the street. "I know you will." 

Then he steps back again, all smiles, waving cheerfully until Sunwoo is indoors and out of sight.

*

**White King**

They come for Jaehyun in the night. 

The king's guards demand entry to his house in the name of the king, then push past Younghoon, force their way into Jaehyun's room and arrest him. They give him enough time to put on some clothes, for decency's sake, but then they shove him out the door.

"On what charges?" Joonyoung says, following them down to the courtyard, seemingly uncaring of the fact that he's shirtless and that everyone knows he was just in Jaehyun's bed. "You can't just arrest him. What has he _done_?"

"Treason," snaps the head guard, and shoves the warrant in Joonyoung's face. 

"Leave it, Joonyoung-ah," Jaehyun says, and he darts one last kiss to Joonyoung's cheek before the guards bind his wrists. "Listen to Younghoon," he calls over his shoulder. "Younghoon will know what to do."

The ride to the palace in the prisoner's wagon is lonely. Jaehyun closes his eyes and lies down on the bare boards as much as his bonds will allow, trying to get just a little more rest.

He has seen the king's dungeons before, albeit from the other side. There is nothing here to surprise him, and he doesn't struggle as they haul him down the long corridors and throw him into a cell. The room is dark and cold and almost completely bare. Jaehyun sits down on the thin, dirty pallet, wondering if he should just be thankful that he wasn't simply executed on sight. 

"Jaehyun? Is that you?" A voice comes from the neighbouring cell. 

He narrows his eyes. "Who's that?"

The other person sighs. "It's me."

"Juyeon!" Jaehyun shoots to his feet. There's a gap at the top of the wall between their cells, and when he stands he can almost, but not quite, reach it. "What the hell are you doing here? Is Youngjae here too?"

He laughs. "I could ask you the same thing. And no. Youngjae is fine. He's safe. Joonyoung-hyung too?"

"He's with Younghoon. Well, that's something at least. They're not caught up in this mess." Jaehyun sighs and slumps against the wall, sliding down to the ground. "All this isn't exactly according to plan, is it?"

Juyeon is silent for a long time. "Hyung," he says at last.

"Yeah?" Jaehyun says, lifting his head.

"I missed you." 

Jaehyun takes in a deep, long breath, and lays his hand against the wall, imagining Juyeon on the other side just a stone's width away. "Yeah," he says. "Well. I guess I missed you too."

*

The truth is that Jaehyun never hated Lee Juyeon. Not really.

He was eighteen years old when the war was declared, and Juyeon was seventeen. Green boys, too highly ranked not to be given positions of significance, but lacking the experience to be trusted with anything truly important. They were both stationed under General Lee Sangyeon - the youngest of all the generals - at a watchtower along the border that was supposed to be of only low to middling strategic importance. 

Instead it became a focal point of the war. 

He never hated Lee Juyeon. After the exhilaration of battle, the terror and the tension of fighting side by side, of having to trust in Juyeon to guard his back, and for Juyeon to trust him so completely in return - he didn't hate him at all. 

"Stop whining," Jaehyun said, when Juyeon hissed and winced as Jaehyun cleaned out his wound with alcohol. It was only a slash along his arm, not significant enough to take to the doctors' tents when they were already overburdened, but something that had to be attended to before it festered. "There," he said in a gentler voice, when he'd finished bandaging and wrapping Juyeon's arm. "You're done."

"Thank you for taking care of me, Jaehyun-hyung," Juyeon said, and his eyes were soft as he smiled.

"Just don't get hurt any worse than this," Jaehyun says, looking down, busying himself with putting away the bandages. "I don't want to be the one having to tell General Sangyeon that his favourite little soldier got run through by a berserker, or whatever."

"Hyung," Juyeon says, his hand closing over Jaehyun's, moving even closer to Jaehyun's side. "Would you just shut up for a minute?" he says, eyes crinkling, and then he closes the gap between them, capturing Jaehyun's mouth in a kiss.

They never talked about it, not really, Jaehyun assuming they both recognised it for what it was. They were eighteen and seventeen years old, and they didn't hate each other, and on any given day they could die. So, still running on the adrenaline of battle, their blood running hot and hearts beating fast, they'd kiss frantically and rut into each other's hands, or hastily fuck in one of their tents, and for one more night, they'd reaffirm to themselves and to each other they were still alive. 

And if sometimes Jaehyun would look at Juyeon in the firelight and think him beautiful, or if Juyeon clung to him as he slept, then no one needed to know. It was wartime, and the usual rules didn't apply.

Younghoon was the only one who knew, because Younghoon always knew everything. "I hope you know what you're doing," he said, watching Jaehyun watching Juyeon.

"There's nothing to know," Jaehyun said, rolling his eyes, and at the time he even believed it.

When Jaehyun looks back, this was the simplest time in his entire war. Perhaps the last simple time in his life.

Then word came that Jaehyun's father had died in battle. Sangyeon broke the news as soon as he received it, with Haknyeon summoning Jaehyun and Younghoon to the general's field tent in the dead of night. 

"I'm so sorry," Sangyeon said, handing over the message that tells of a terrible defeat, a whole battalion lost. The battle took Jaehyun's father, and Youngjae's mother too, and so many other knights of their household. Half a family wiped out in a day. 

"Take care of him," he heard Sangyeon say, and it wasn't until Younghoon's arm was around him, guiding him out of the tent, that he realised those words weren't meant for him. 

Younghoon took him back to his tent, where he lay alone in the dark until someone slipped inside. Younghoon must have gone to fetch him - and Jaehyun didn't question for a moment that it was him. He knew him now, even in the dark.

"Hyung," Juyeon said, crouching by his bed, cradling his face in his hands, wiping away the wetness on his cheeks with his thumbs. "What can I do? How can I help?"

"Kiss me," Jaehyun said after a moment. "Make me forget."

For one more night, at least, Juyeon could do just that. 

*

General Sangyeon held the watchtower, and the victory turned the tide. 

From defence, the kingdom turned to attack, and soon after that the army began to move. Sangyeon's troops were split into two: the General was to take the larger portion, accompanied by Juyeon, heading northwards to join with other forces and continue the push towards the enemy capital. Jaehyun and Younghoon would go eastward with the smaller force, under Jaehyun's command. 

Their farewell was brief and unsentimental - a clasp of hands, a muttered word, a brief meeting of eyes before Jaehyun moved on to say the same to the next officer. A farewell between comrades who might meet again, or might not.

(Though as he rode away from the camp, Jaehyun touched his collarbone, almost without meaning to do it, as though he could feel somehow through his armour the impress of Juyeon's mouth from the night before, leaving one last mark.)

He heard of Juyeon occasionally after that, almost always news of a victory on the battlefield or some brave deed. General Sangyeon, too, was becoming a famous hero. But mostly Jaehyun was busy just trying to stay alive and look after his people as best he could, and he didn't have time to chase after the shadow of someone who had never been his in the first place.

There was one piece of news which gave him pause: when Juyeon's father was killed in an ambush while on a routine patrol with his troops. 

Jaehyun penned a short note of condolences, precisely formal and correct. He hesitated for the longest time before he sealed the letter. 

But what could he possibly add? What words did he dare commit to paper that could adequately say, _if I were there, I'd hold you like you held me, if I were there, I'd comfort you like you comforted me. I wish I was there._

So he said nothing, and willed himself not to be disappointed when he received an equally cold, polite, correct note in return.

Until he turned the piece of paper over, and saw there were a few lines of poetry in a familiar hand on the back. Unsigned, undated. But the words stirred a memory - patrolling in the dead of night, on watch, waiting for the dawn to come; and Juyeon by his side, reciting poetry as they walked to keep the dark at bay. 

Jaehyhun folded up the note, and kept it.

*

It was Younghoon who said it first. 

"Something is wrong," he said, one late night when they were warming their hands over the fire. 

"You don't say," Jaehyun said sarcastically. His horse had that morning thrown a shoe, the expected food shipment was running late, and the weather was starting to turn very cold.

"Yes, that, but also," Younghoon said, and handed him a piece of paper. 

He had listed a series of names, all men and women of important houses, and beside each the date and circumstances of their deaths in the war. Jaehyun's father was on the list. Juyeon's father too. 

"A routine patrol... an ambush on a trail that had been safe until then... overpowered by force of numbers although scouting reports had suggested a low risk..." Jaehyun read through the list, then raised his eyes. "Most of these deaths look trivial. Accidents and bad luck or poor intelligence. But when considered together - you suspect a spy."

"Yes, and no," Younghoon said. He stood and paced about the fire, before settling down beside Jaehyun again, speaking low and fast. "Because, despite it all, we are winning this war. If we are so compromised, how can we still be winning? If not the enemy, then who gains from these losses?"

They looked at each other for a long moment.

Jaehyun shook his head, then turned his head and spat. "Long live the king," he whispered, and fed the piece of paper into the fire. 

They did not speak of it again directly until near the end of the war. 

The enemy had sued for peace at last, so the king summoned all his generals and all the heads of the most important houses to witness the negotiation and signing of the treaty. For another generation, perhaps, there would be no war... unless the war came from inside the kingdom itself.

After the talks were over for the day, Haknyeon, bright and smiling as ever, came across Jaehyun and Younghoon as they were leaving the palace. "Why don't you join me for a drink?" he said, with feigned spontaneity, as if the encounter had come about by chance. As if Haknyeon would ever let himself be caught by surprise in such a way.

Haknyeon led them to a teahouse, unfashionably far from the palace, and took them upstairs to a private room. 

Jaehyun was unsurprised to see Sangyeon waiting inside, but his step stuttered a little when he saw Juyeon beside him, lounging at the low table as he sipped at his tea. After all their months on the front in battered armour it was strange to see him in fine clothing, gold at his wrists and on his fingers, with his hair properly styled. Juyeon looked every inch a young prince, and Jaehyun tried not to stare.

"Gentlemen," Sangyeon said, greeting them with his deceptively affable smile. "Please, take a seat."

"Should we consider this a council of war?" Jaehyun said, as Haknyeon poured tea for the table and slid a plate of little sesame biscuits closer to his side of the table. 

"More of a council on how to prevent war," Juyeon said drily, and they grinned at each other, just for a moment.

The five of them talked long into the evening. The king had eliminated his most dangerous opponents, but in his fear and paranoia he would never be satisfied - soon he would start looking at them too. He had long hated the hounds and the wolves, the two strongest families in the entire city. If it hadn't been for the traditional animosity between their houses, they might have banded together against him long ago.

"But we have an opportunity here," Sangyeon said, looking between Jaehyun and Juyeon. He raised an eyebrow when neither of them answered. "I'm not mistaken, am I? You two are still on good terms?"

Jaehyun met Juyeon's eyes. Then Jaehyun looked away, swallowing. "Yes," he said, and he took a sip of his tea to cover the moment. "Yes, we're on good terms."

"Good," Haknyeon said, gently clearing his throat to break the tension. "Because we have a proposal." 

Jaehyun looked over at him in surprise. "Go on then. We're listening."

*

The ink was barely dry on the peace treaty when Juyeon and Jaehyun had a very public falling-out.

There was disagreement about what the argument had actually entailed. Who knew what two powerful men would fight about behind closed doors? Everything and nothing. The price of salt. The colour of the sky. Maybe Juyeon simply hated Jaehyun's face and had been waiting all war long to tell him so. For generations their families had never needed much more than that to come to blows.

All that was known was that they'd walked into a room together, and barely an hour later come storming out, nearly needing to be physically separated.

The heroes who had together turned the tide of the war - who had even, claimed some observers, been good friends - now refused to be seen in the same room. Their people spat at each other in the street. Jaehyun's people withdrew their business from a vendor known to favour Juyeon's house; in retaliation Juyeon's house doubled their orders.

Everyone who knew anything at all simply shook their heads wisely, and said that the kingdom should just be glad they'd had the sense to keep a check on their feud until the war was over. 

As soon as the treaty was signed, they were back to their old ways, snarling and snapping, the wolves chasing the hounds and the hounds chasing the wolves, on and endlessly on. 

*

So it went for the next three years. 

When Juyeon sent him the note and he'd rushed to Youngjae's side, it was the first time they'd been alone together since the war. Even though it was what they'd agreed to do, what they had decided would be best for their houses as well as the kingdom, Jaehyun could admit - yes, he'd missed Juyeon too.

There were some wounds that healed over time, but when the weather turned, still brought back an old dull ache. That's what it felt like to Jaehyun when he saw Juyeon again, a memory of something deep in his bones that he'd never be able to shake. 

And what had it all been for? To keep the kingdom safe, to keep the king at bay. Yet here they were in the end anyway. Locked up in the dungeons with only a wall between them. Together once again.

"Since we have nothing else to do," Jaehyun says eventually, "we should talk."

"About what?" Juyeon says. 

"The last three years, maybe," Jaehyun says, rolling his eyes. "The last two months. Youngjae."

"Youngjae..." Juyeon says, and even through the wall Jaehyun can hear the wistfulness, can imagine the starry look in his eyes.

Jaehyun laughs. He's honestly not jealous - what they'd had wasn't like that, didn't come from a desire to possess. "You're well and truly gone for that brat." He smiles. "I'm happy for you. Or I will be. If we get out of here."

"There's still hope," Juyeon says. "There's still a chance. You know there's still..." He trails off, both of them aware that there could be ears anywhere. "You remember the other plan."

"Maybe." Jaehyun says, and he drags the pallet closer to their wall and lies down, trying to get comfortable. "Maybe there's a chance for them. But for us? I don't know, Juyeon. Could be that we're out of time at last. Could be the other plan is no use at all."

"Hyung," Juyeon says, a long time later, just as Jaehyun thinks he must have fallen asleep. "Do you still wear your ring?"

Jaehyun's hand flies up to his throat, to the necklace he's never taken off, not for three long years. "Every day," he says, quietly. "Every day."

If it's the end, at least they have each other.

*

**Black Queen**

The news that Jaehyun and Juyeon have been arrested sweeps through the city. It's like the spark that lights the wildfire, and while Sunwoo is still frozen with indecision, Chanhee seems determined to stoke the flames.

"Change the play," he says, slamming the latest script down on Kevin's desk. 

"What?" Kevin says, jumping. 

"Change the play," Chanhee says in a softer voice. He taps the script lightly. "This is your moment, Kevin. Listen," he says, and he throws his arm out towards the window. "Can't you hear it? The city is crying out for a voice."

Sunwoo feels it when he walks the streets. People are brimming with a simmering, ugly resentment. Fights break out at random. Neighbours distrust their neighbours. The watch is everywhere, heavy-handed and cruel. The day before, the king took a ride through the city, but the people threw rotten vegetables and stones, and he ended up fleeing back to the palace.

While Chanhee and Kevin put their heads together, Sunwoo wanders away. The theatre is as busy as ever - the show must go on, after all - and the props department or wardrobe could probably use a spare pair of hands, but Sunwoo finds himself slipping outside instead.

"What are you thinking about?" Changmin says, sneaking up silently as usual to prop his chin on his shoulder. 

"Juyeon," Sunwoo says, miserably.

For once Changmin doesn't tease him. He just hugs him tightly, and silently gives him a clean handkerchief when Sunwoo starts to sniffle.

"I should go back," Sunwoo says, when he's got control of his voice again. "I should go back. I should be with Joonyoung right now, figuring out how we get Juyeon out of there. I need to leave right now -"

"Stop," Changmin says, firmly but kindly enough. "You don't need to do anything right now. At the moment, they still think you're dead. If you come back, that's a move you can only make once and never again. How will it help Juyeon if you do this now?"

Sunwoo makes a frustrated sound. "I'm just - I'm so fucking helpless! All I do is wait and wait. I've been kept so safe I could scream and Juyeon could be dead tomorrow. I hate feeling so," he clenches his fists, trying not to cry again, "I feel so useless."

"You're not useless," Changmin says. "No one thinks that, I promise you."

"Oh yeah?" Sunwoo says bitterly. "So that's why Juyeon left me here. That's why he hasn't needed me all this time."

"He trusts you," Changmin says, and then he takes hold of Sunwoo's hand, plucking at the bracelet looped around his wrist. "And my employer trusts you too, remember?" 

"Your employer," Sunwoo says, and he takes a guess, a guess that feels right just as it felt right when he guessed Changmin was the masked man. "Do you mean Lee Jaehyun?" 

It only made sense. One from Juyeon's side, one from Jaehyun's side, his two keepers, keeping each other in balance.

Changmin nods without any visible surprise, fingers still playing at Sunwoo's wrist. "Yes. So you understand, don't you? This is more than just a token to be redeemed. This is Jaehyun saying he trusts you to make the right choice. That he trusts you with me, and my secrets too."

"Your secrets?" Sunwoo says, and he tries to smile again. "But I don't even know your secrets. Except for the obvious ones. Are there more?"

"I'll tell you later," Changmin says, rolling his eyes.

"After tonight's performance?" Sunwoo says, as he lets himself be led slowly back inside, Changmin still comfortingly warm by his side.

"Maybe."

*

The play is a tragedy and, in essence, Kevin and Chanhee don't change it much. The storyline remains intact. But they make a few key staging alterations that have the audience gasping, and at least one of the king's courtiers storms out of the theatre before the play is done.

"Did I fall well?" Chanhee says afterwards, smugly. 

"You fell beautifully, oppa," Ahin assures him. "Like a swan. Like cherry blossoms in the spring." 

The script called for Chanhee's prince to die. It didn't say he had to fall from a tower, pushed by a malicious king. But he did - and how the audience gasped when he toppled over the turret wall and disappeared from view. 

They gasped even louder when the same cruel king cut the throats of two princes in order to secure his throne. In their death throes, one prince cast the shadow of a snarling wolf, and the other a great dark hound.

It was not subtle, but Kevin didn't seem too concerned and nor did most of the crowd. "When you're up in the rafters or down in the pit, you don't always have time for subtlety," Kevein said, still a little dazed from the roars they heard at curtain and their three encore bows.

"Aren't you worried?" Sunwoo says to Chanhee and Changmin, walking home flanked between the two of them, arms linked. "Isn't this too - provocative?" 

"Maybe," Chanhee says blithely. "But what is the king going to do? If he dares to execute Juyeon and Jaehyun now without even a trial, what are people going to think? It would be far too obvious. We've _made_ it far too obvious. At the very least we've muddied the waters and slowed him down. And besides," he says pragmatically, "we might as well make some money while we still can."

Sure enough, the next day's matinee is sold out, and the next evening too.

On the third day, the watch shuts down the theatre.

*

"I think I know," Sunwoo says. He is lying on his pallet at Chanhee's lodgings, staring up at the ceiling, while on the other side of the room Changmin fiddles with a puzzle of interlinked rings.

"Hmm?" he says, still frowning over his toy.

"I think I'm starting to realise what this is for," Sunwoo says, raising his wrist and rattling the bracelet around it. "But first." He sits up straight and looks at Changmin seriously. "I want to see Joonyoung."

They go in the night, cloaked and masked. Changmin leads him by routes he'd never think to take, down alleyways and under bridges, over roofs and through hidden tunnels. "How do you even know all these places?" Sunwoo says as they finally, improbably, surface from the city's underground behind Juyeon's house, having successfully avoided all the guards.

"One of my secrets," Changmin says cheerfully. "I'll tell you all about it, one day." He works open a window with his clever hands and a sharp knife, and gestures at Sunwoo to go inside. "Be my guest."

"But this is my house," Sunwoo mutters as he climbs through the window into the library. 

He leaves Changmin waiting amongst the books as he makes his way through the familiar old house. But before he reaches Joonyoung's room, he sees light coming from a room he knows should be vacant. Biting his lip, he takes a little peek through the open door - but at the creaking of the floorboards, the person inside looks up and they see each other in the same moment.

"What the fuck, aren't you meant to be dead?" says Sohn Youngjae, sitting up straight in the bed.

"What are you doing in _my_ house?" says Sunwoo indignantly, closing the door behind him.

They're not friends. They have never been friends. But it was impossible for them not to know of each other, growing up in parallel, each the treasured young masters of their respective families, mixing in the same circles. Young bloods who saw each other constantly at the races, the theatre, the gaming houses, and never exchanged a word. 

"An assassin stabbed me in the street and Juyeon-hyung saved my life," Youngjae says, offering it up warily, still eyeing him suspiciously.

"I got pushed off a tower and I've been undercover in a theatre troupe ever since," Sunwoo shoots back.

They stare at each other for a moment... Youngjae is the first to crack. "A theatre troupe?" he says incredulously, struggling not to smile. "Really? What are you, a clown?"

"Shut up, what are you doing hanging around my cousin anyway?" Sunwoo hisses. "And since when was he 'hyung' to you, when did you get so close?" To his surprise, Youngjae blushes and a sudden, terrible realisation dawns on him. "Oh no, not you and _Juyeon_ -"

"It's not like that!" Youngjae says, almost yelling. 

They're not friends, they've never been friends, but Sunwoo can already imagine what it would be like if they were. Laughing quietly, Sunwoo drops into a chair, and they start to talk. 

"Jaehyun and Juyeon - they both lied to us," Youngjae says when they're both caught up, plucking at his blanket. "They were so busy trying to keep everyone safe, to keep us safe, that they never stopped to ask what we thought about it."

Sunwoo shakes his head. "I don't think they expected any of this to happen. I don't think they ever thought we'd be left on our own. If they had, they would've planned for it better."

"And now there's no time," Youngjae says morosely. 

Sighing, Sunwoo idly reaches out to poke at the chessboard on the table beside the bed. "You play?"

"Sort of," Youngjae says. "Juyeon-hyung was teaching me."

"Yeah? Hyung never could get me to learn. I never had the patience. I always wanted to just..." He swipes the king off the board, tosses it carelessly in his hand. 

"Do you ever think about how both of them were our age when they went to war?" Youngjae says, slumping back against his pillows. "They weren't any older than we are now when they changed the world."

"Yeah." Sunwoo taps the king against his chin thoughtfully. "But maybe that's just it. Maybe it's our turn to try."

"My thoughts exactly." Youngjae reaches out and plucks a pawn from the chessboard. He points it at Sunwoo, saying, "You know what happens when this reaches the other side of the board, right?"

Sunwoo smiles crookedly. "That part I do remember. Listen," he says, leaning forward, "I have a plan."

*

"Did you talk to Joonyoung?" Changmin says, looking up when he comes back into the library. 

"No, and I don't want to anymore," Sunwoo says, ignoring Changmin's curious look. "Let's just quickly go before anyone finds out we're here." 

After they've shimmied out the window (Changmin conscientiously locking it again behind them) and gone back to the street, Sunwoo stops Changmin. "Wait. We're not going home," he says, heart starting to race.

"Oh? We're not?" Changmin says, cocking his head. "Then where are we going?"

"The palace," Sunwoo says, and he takes off the bracelet and puts it into Changmin's hand. He's so scared he feels like his whole heart is going to beat out of his chest, but he takes a deep breath and says it anyway:

"We're going to the palace and I'm going to kill the king."

*

**Black King**

Five days after Juyeon was thrown into the dungeons, his cell door swings open with a rusty creak. He sits up, holding his hand up against the sudden light, ready for the worst - but it's not a grim-faced executioner, or even one of the king's guards. 

"Juyeon-ssi," Haknyeon says, with the sunniest of smiles. He sweeps an exaggerated bow, gesturing to the open door. "The king is dead. Won't you join us for tea?"

"What on earth - nevermind. I know you'll fill me in." Juyeon shakes his head incredulously, hauling himself to his feet. He claps Haknyeon on the shoulder as he passes.

Just outside the door, Jaehyun is waiting, leaning against the wall and looking as dishevelled and greasy and unkempt as Juyeon is sure he does himself. But he's still so handsome and so bright - when he smiles and puts his arm around Juyeon's shoulders, Juyeon can't help but smile back.

"The old gang, together again," Jaehyun says, with only a hint of mockery, as Haknyeon leads them up and out of the dungeons. At the top of the stairs, Sangyeon is waiting, and the sight of him takes Juyeon back to three years ago, when they made their pact in the teahouse and tried to set the course of the future.

And now the future was here. Not in the exact shape they'd planned it, not in the precise way they'd expected, but it was here.

"Gentlemen," Sangyeon says, and he bows to them too, before he straightens up with a gleam in his eye. "We have much to discuss."

*

The king is dead, leaving no heir, so the council hastily assembles to decide on his successor. 

"What are they doing here?" says one of the dead king's cronies, casting baleful glances at Juyeon and Jaehyun who have had just enough time to clean up and change clothes and eat a mouthful of food before being rushed into the council. "Shouldn't they be in the dungeons?"

"There was no proof to the king's allegations," Sangyeon says mildly. "They remained under arrest until this was verified. Even kings are subject to the rule of law, are they not?" Sangyeon stares the other down and then smiles, gently, when he looks away. 

"But this leaves us in a difficult state," says Uhm Junghwa, too senior and too powerful to care to mince her words, drumming her long lacquered nails on the council table. "We all know Jaehyun has the strongest claim to the throne by blood, and that Juyeon has the next best claim, as well as the support of the General." 

"The council can rest assured I have no view on this matter. I'm a mere servant to the crown," Sangyeon says, bowing his head in a show of humility. 

She snorts. "Don't be coy, General, we all know Juyeon was your favourite soldier in the war." 

Junghwa dismisses him and turns to Juyeon and Jaehyun directly now, seated at the end of the table, the most junior people in the room except for Haknyeon standing by his General's side. "So here you are, the wolf and the hound at last. If we decide here today that one of you will ascend the throne, what assurances can the other give that he will accept the outcome? Our kingdom has already lost so much, gentlemen. We cannot afford to lose any more in some needless civil war."

Several of the older council members look shocked at her blunt speech. But Sangyeon covers his smile with his hand, and Jaehyun looks almost relieved as he gets to his feet. Finally, it's all coming into the light.

"We can give the council more than assurances," Jaehyun says, his head held high, and he reaches down to hold Juyeon's hand, tugging him to his feet too. "We can promise there will be no conflict between us, and no risk of any in future. All we want is peace."

"Oh?" Junghwa steeples her fingers, eyebrows raised, polite but skeptical. She glances at their clasped hands with just a slight look of surprise. "And can you offer anything more than words to convince us?"

"Yes," Jaehyun says, and he looks at Juyeon again, swallowing slightly.

Jaehyun looks cool and calm enough, but only Juyeon can see the tic in his jaw, only he knows him well enough to hear the slightest of tremors in his voice. He's the only person Juyeon has ever trusted like this, and who has trusted him so completely in return. Juyeon squeezes his hand softly, and turns back to the council.

"The kingdom has nothing to fear because we were married three years ago. Whichever one of us takes the throne, the other will hold it in joint stead," Juyeon says, and that's all he manages to say before everyone starts shouting.

*

Three years ago, at the teahouse, Haknyeon suggested the plan and Jaehyun had simply stood up and walked out, Younghoon following him shortly after. 

He didn't go far - Juyeon looked out the window and saw him pacing the courtyard, with Younghoon at his side, trying to be the voice of reason. "They're out of their minds," he heard Jaehyun say in an outraged voice, before Younghoon laughed and said something in a softer tone.

"Do you think he'll be back?" Sangyeon said, sipping his tea, looking only faintly concerned.

Juyeon hesitated before sitting down again. "I think so," he said, at last. "It's a shock to him, that's all. It's probably not what he had planned for his life."

"You mean, an advantageous marriage to a powerful peer of equal standing?" Sangyeon said. He raised his eyebrows. "It sounds like exactly what he should have been planning for."

Juyeon just shakes his head. 

These kind of marriages weren't supposed to be about love but did that have to mean he wouldn't love Jaehyun? He wasn't sure. He didn't know if he'd ever been in love. But he did trust Jaehyun. He cared for him, and he was certain Jaehyun cared in return. If they were to wed, the vows would be anything but empty.

But the plan they were embarking on would keep them apart for years, maybe even many years. If they were to marry, then Juyeon knew he would want it to be real, but it could not be real until they reached the very end of the game. It seemed a bittersweet trade-off.

"Ah," Haknyeon said, still standing at the window. "Here they come."

Jaehyun came back into the room and sat down heavily next to Juyeon. He ignored the others and said to Juyeon, quietly, "Alright, I thought about it. Do you want this? If you want this, if you can bear it, I'll do it." His hand on Juyeon's wrist was warm. "But if you don't, just say the word, and I'll kill this idea forever."

Juyeon nodded. "I want it," he said, and he leaned in close to Jaehyun's ear to whisper, "and I want it with you. Do you understand?" 

"Good," Jaehyun said, and he smiled, just a little smile, but a real one. "Me too."

It was Haknyeon who arranged the wedding ceremony. Sangyeon kept well away, all the better to disclaim any knowledge of the deed, so the only witnesses on the day were Haknyeon, Younghoon, and the temple priestess who married them. 

After they finished the rites and bowed to each other, they exchanged the rings they'd both prepared. Both were simple, plain bands, the kind that would cause little comment if seen. 

They spent the night together after the wedding. One last night, to last them through all the rest of the nights that would follow.

"If you find someone else," Jaehyun said quietly, when they were lying curled together and all was still in the night. "If you find someone else, then you should be with them. Love them, if you can. It's rare enough in this world that you shouldn't have to wait for it to come to you."

"Only if you'll do the same," Juyeon said. "You deserve to be loved," he said, and then he kissed Jaehyun, because he wanted to, and because it was true.

The next day the peace treaty was signed, and Juyeon and Jaehyun had their very public falling out. For the next three years they did not speak, except for notes passed via the teahouse, and the occasional cold word at court. 

He never took off his ring.

*

Juyeon goes home that night because the council's decision is not yet official, though everyone knows it's all but a foregone conclusion. 

When he arrives, he finds the house very quiet. Joonyoung is still with Jaehyun, and it seems Youngjae has gone home to Jaehyun too. 

Youngjae left no note behind - just the chessboard with its half-finished game, and a stack of books piled up neatly on the table, all the ones they'd been reading through together. Juyeon sighs as he looks over the chessboard, and wishes they'd had time to talk. 

They'd never really made their feelings for each other clear. It had never been the right time, between Youngjae's recovery and the king's increasing pressure on both their houses. Now he wonders if they ever will.

"Brooding again, hyung?" Sunwoo says from behind him. 

"Sunwoo," Juyeon gasps, eating up the distance between them in two great strides and catching his cousin in a huge hug. "I missed you," he says, into Sunwoo's hair.

"No need to get all soppy about it," Sunwoo says, hugging back just as hard.

They go downstairs to his study and Juyeon pours them each a drink. "Long live the king," Sunwoo says, raising his glass. His mouth quirks. "Or do I mean 'kings'? Congratulations on the wedding, hyung. Wish I'd got the invitation."

Juyeon reddens and covers his face, but he supposes there will be a lot of this in the days, weeks, months to come. "Thanks," he says, and they clink glasses. 

"You really married Lee Jaehyun, huh," Sunwoo says, shaking his head. "Thought you hated him. You had me fooled."

"I don't hate him," Juyeon says, and he looks down, fiddling at his ring. "I never did. It was just our form of mutual assurance. We each had the backing of the other, and the marriage made it official, stronger than just a promise."

"You married him for mutual assurance?" Sunwoo snorts. "Sure, hyung."

"We wanted to put the king on trial," Juyeon says, ignoring the snort. "Force him out by legal means. Haknyeon and Sangyeon have been working on building a case, going back through military records from the war and gathering witnesses. Half the officials in court will be gone by the time we're through. But the king was meant to be the first. We thought we'd have more time."

Sunwoo takes a drink and then says, abruptly, setting the glass down, "I killed him myself, you know."

For a moment Juyeon just blinks. "What?" he says, at last, shocked. "Why? But Jaehyun sent Changmin to you so -"

"I know!" Sunwoo says. "I know. But it didn't seem right. I just felt that," he bows his head, "I was the one who made the decision to do it. Not you, not Changmin. So the only one who should be responsible is me."

"Sunwoo," Juyeon says, and he reaches out to grip Sunwoo's hand. "I never meant for you to have to carry this. I wanted to keep you away from all this, I thought I could keep it all separate. You were meant to be..." 

_Innocent_ , he wants to say. _Safe_ , he wants to say. But what right does he have to say that, to decide on Sunwoo's behalf? 

"I know killing him isn't the choice you would have made. If it was, you could've done it years ago. But I made my own decision," Sunwoo says, looking him in the eye with a steadiness Juyeon's not sure he would have possessed a couple of months ago. "I know what I did and what it would mean. Don't worry about me, hyung. You and Jaehyun have a chance to make something new now." He smiles. "So don't fuck it up."

"I'll try," Juyeon says. Then he adds, tentatively, "So will you come home now?" 

"No," Sunwoo says swiftly, but then he softens it, maybe because he sees the hurt in Juyeon's expression. "Not yet. I'll come and see you, whenever I can, but I want to go back to the theatre for a while. I have friends there now. Kevin is working on his next play and Ahin is teaching me how to knit. And I'm still owed a secret or two. 

"Besides, someone said to me you can only come back from the dead once." Sunwoo grins, slow and sly. "I'm gonna save that move for when we really need it."

*

The following afternoon, Juyeon goes to Jaehyun's house.

It's strange to see Jaehyun at home (not at war, not at court, not in a dungeon) and stranger still to draw close to him, unsure for a moment if he should bow to him, if he should kiss him, if he should - 

"You think too much," Jaehyun says, and kisses him on the cheek before taking him by the hand and leading him into the house. Jaehyun is wearing his wedding ring on his finger again, he sees, looking down at their clasped hands.

"Youngjae first, or business first?" Jaehyun says.

Juyeon nearly trips. "I never said -"

"Youngjae first then," Jaehyun says. "We'll go talk to him, and Younghoon and Joonyoung can keep sorting out everything else that needs to be done with our estates. It's not like they need our help anyway."

Juyeon shuts up and lets Jaehyun lead him through the courtyard, down a corridor and into the gardens.

"He slept with me and Joonyoung last night," Jaehyun says. Instantly he adds, seeing the flush rise on Juyeon's face, "Not like that! We just slept. He didn't want to be alone."

Juyeon takes a deep breath and imagines the three of them curled up together, and finds he is only jealous he hadn't been there too. Maybe one day.

"Is he angry at me?" Juyeon says. 

"I don't think so," Jaehyun says. "But I think he's going to need some time."

They find Youngjae in the gardens, rubbing the belly of a blissed-out dog and calling it by baby names. When he sees them approaching, he scrambles to his feet, looking embarrassed, looking anywhere except at Juyeon. "Hyung," he says to Jaehyun, and to Juyeon just a quiet little, "Juyeon-hyung."

"Don't be so shy, brat," Jaehyun says. He pulls them both to a seat in a quiet spot under a tree and makes them sit, Youngjae in the middle. 

"You should talk to each other," Jaehyun says. "Juyeon and I have talked plenty already. God knows we had nothing else to do in the dungeons. But you two need to sort yourselves out eventually."

"You talked about us - about me?" Youngjae says, looking horrified, like he's going to squirm his way out of his seat. 

"Of course we did," Jaehyun says, scoffing. His tone turns softer, and he wraps his arm around Youngjae's shoulders. "Listen, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You don't have to decide anything today, if you don't want to. Anything you do choose, I'll always support you. But you should talk to him. At the very least, just talk to each other. Alright?" 

Youngjae nods, and then makes a face when Jaehyun smacks a kiss on his forehead. "Hyung!"

Jaehyun reaches across Youngjae and picks up Juyeon's hand, presses a kiss to that too, then joins Juyeon and Youngjae's hands together. "See you two at dinner," he says, and then blithely walks off, whistling the dog to heel as he goes.

Juyeon looks down at their linked hands and casts around for something to say. His mind is suddenly a complete blank. "Youngjae," he starts to say.

"Was I just a replacement?" Youngjae blurts out. He looks even more embarrassed than before, but now it's out he seems to gain courage as he goes. "When you were looking after me, being kind to me, were you just thinking about hyung?"

"No!" Juyeon says, horrified.

"You're married to him," Youngjae says, words coming faster now. "You're married to him and everyone says we're so alike and you were just so - so fucking kind to me. Was it just because I remind you of him? You can say it if you want." He says the last part bravely but his lower lip is trembling. Juyeon wants to reach out and touch it.

"No, Youngjae," Juyeon says, firmly. "You're special to me. Don't you remember the teahouse, when we met? You were just Eric and I was Junghoon. I thought you were some official's son playing truant, running away from his responsibilities."

Youngjae smiles a little. "And I thought you were a pensioned-off soldier, spending all his coin on poetry and tea."

"I wasn't meant to go to the teahouse that often, you know," Juyeon admits. "We use it as a drop-off point for messages. Usually I'd send Joonyoung or one of my other trusted people to take turns collecting them, but after I met you..." He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand and laughs a little sheepishly. "Joonyoung knew something was up. He kept asking me why I needed to go to the teahouse all the time."

He laughs. "What did you tell him? That you really liked the tea?"

"Youngjae," Juyeon says, and he does it this time, he cups Youngjae's face in his hand, smooths his thumb across Youngjae's bottom lip. "I just really like you."

He waits long enough for Youngjae to pull away if he wants, to turn his face away if he wants, but he doesn't. So Juyeon kisses him, until Youngjae is kissing back with his arms around Juyeon's neck, until Youngjae is practically in his lap - 

"That's enough for now," Youngjae says, slapping his hand on Juyeon's chest, out of breath, flushed red all over. He slides back down to the seat and out of Juyeon's lap, straightening up his clothes.

"You know, I've been waiting to kiss you since the day we met," Juyeon says.

"Don't," Youngjae covers his face briefly, looking both pleased and mortified. "Don't say things like that!" 

"Why not, when it's true?"

"Because you're married to Jaehyun-hyung," Youngjae says bluntly. He makes a frustrated sound. "Listen, I know hyung and Joonyoung-hyung have somehow worked all this out already, and they've decided they're happy to - to _share_ ," he says, "but I need more time. Alright? This is all so new to me, I don't even know how I feel yet."

"You can have all the time you need," Juyeon says. "Just like hyung said, you don't have to decide anything until you're ready."

"But you won't - won't you get tired of waiting?" Youngjae says, looking nervous and doubtful again. As though he really believes Juyeon is going to give up and walk away at any moment.

"I won't," Juyeon says. "I promise." 

Juyeon's not sure what else he can say to make Youngjae believe him. He'll just have to wait it out. That's alright. He can wait. He's done it before.

He reaches out and touches Youngjae's face again, a gentle touch, thumbing rubbing along the line of his jaw. "Why don't you show me the grounds," Juyeon says, smiling when Youngjae grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers. "Give me the grand tour before we have to go in for dinner."

He follows Youngjae further into the gardens, Youngjae talking slowly at first and then quicker and quicker; and Juyeon thinks, at last, the future seems full of light.

*

**End Game**

Youngjae forgave Joonyoung easily, almost too easily, as though the duel had long slipped from his mind, or - perhaps more accurately - as though he believed anyone Jaehyun trusted had to be trustworthy by default. Within days, he was treating Joonyoung like someone he'd known for years.

"Alright, but seriously, tell me," Youngjae says, a few days after the truth comes out about everything, "how did you and hyung work things out so quickly?" He flings himself into a seat by Joonyoung's desk.

"Um," Joonyoung says, stalling a little. He smiles, innocently. "How do you mean?"

Youngjae groans and drags his hands over his face. "You know what I mean! You and hyung... but also hyung and Juyeon..." Through his fingers Joonyoung can see his face is bright red.

Joonyoung takes a little pity on him. 

"Well, I've had a lot more time to think about all this," Joonyoung says. "You say it was quick but Jaehyun told me weeks ago about Juyeon. He wanted me to know everything first."

"Hyung told you before he told me?" Youngjae says, looking up, starting to sound indignant. "That's so unfair, I'm his sworn brother."

Joonyoung decides not to get into the politics of who should or should not have been told first, and continues, "So give it some time. There's no rush. Honestly, it wasn't really easy for me either," he says. "I wasn't raised this way. When I was your age, I thought I was going to be a priest." Youngjae's stunned-fish look makes him want to laugh. "Yeah. I grew up thinking all this was wrong."

"So what changed your mind about hyung?" Youngjae says, still looking adorably astonished.

"Well," Joonyoung says, fiddling with his papers, his turn to be a little embarrassed. "First of all, I prayed. I truly did. And then - then I thought about Jaehyun and the kind of person he is." 

"He's a good person," Youngjae says, instantly.

"He is," Joonyoung says, trying not to smile. He reaches out and pats Youngjae's shoulder, just lightly. "He's a really good person and his heart is big enough for all of us. I just don't think that can be wrong."

*

"But is this really the happy ending?" Kevin wonders aloud, stirring sugar into his coffee. "Or is it just _a_ happy ending? All we did was exchange one king for another."

"What's wrong with that?" Nancy says, stealing a biscuit from his plate. "We got rid of a bad king. Now we have a good king. That's a win."

"A pair of good kings," Chanhee corrects.

"Fine then, a pair of good kings," Kevin says, waving off the distinction carelessly. "But what happens when they step down and their successor inherits the throne? Will they be good too? Or what if one of these so-called 'good kings' turns out to be corrupt? Doesn't that make you worried?"

"Yes," Ahin admits, starting to frown. "Yes, actually, it does. It doesn't seem very foolproof, does it? As a system, I mean."

"Exactly," Kevin says, satisfied. "You understand!"

"So what are you going to do about it?" Chanhee says, smiling his troublemaking smile. 

"What do you think I should do about it?" Kevin says, looking at Chanhee suspiciously.

"Well," Chanhee says, tapping his chin with his spoon, "maybe you should write a play about it."

"Right, because writing a play about it turned out so well that other time," Kevin says, making a face. 

"Didn't it, though?" Chanhee says. He gestures across the street to the theatre. "And didn't we re-open again? Aren't we sold out, for days at a time, with Kevin's thrilling story of the secret lovers ascending to the throne?"

"Well, that one has a happy ending! That's my entire point! But what happens if I write something that gets us shut down again?"

"We won't," Chanhee says, perfectly assured. "No matter what you write, we won't." He stands up and puts on his coat. "Alright then, I'm off." He kisses everyone goodbye and leaves, ignoring Kevin's shout of _but New, how do you know?_

He walks briskly around the corner to the spot where his rich, handsome lover is already waiting. "You look so cold," Chanhee says, scolding a little, tugging the scarf a bit more snugly about Younghoon's neck. 

"I'm fine," Younghoon says, smiling, linking their arms together. "How was the theatre this week?" 

"Shouldn't you already know? What kind of owner are you anyway?" Chanhee says, eyebrows raised.

"I read the report," Younghoon says dismissively. "But I'd rather hear it from you." 

"Well," Chanhee says as they start to walk, "I think Kevin is going to write a new play..."

*

"I think I should move out," Sunwoo says. He's lying on his pallet in Chanhee's place again, tossing a ball up in the air while Changmin is in the corner, curled up with a book. "Find my own place and get out of Chanhee's hair."

Changmin's hands still. "You're not going back home?"

After a moment, Sunwoo shakes his head. "I'm not sure there's a place for me anymore." 

Sunwoo had thought he'd known what it meant, how his decision would affect the course of the future. In some ways, it had turned out exactly as he'd planned. And in others...

He'd never killed before and maybe he never would again, judging from how it haunted him. He found he slept badly now, and that the waking hours were sometimes just as bad. One more reason to leave Chanhee alone, rather than having them both suffer his nightmares.

"Are you leaving the theatre then?" Changmin says, still in that same careful tone. 

"No." Sunwoo sits up. He and Changmin stare at each other. "Would you care if I did?"

Changmin looks away first, back down at his book. "I think I would miss you," he says slowly. "Wait. I think we would all miss you. But I _know_ I would miss you."

And a little bit of the shadow clears from his heart. 

Changmin puts the book down and stands up, looking determined, as though he's just made a decision. "Do you want to see where I live?"

"Huh?" Sunwoo says.

He laughs and hauls Sunwoo to his feet. "Come on."

Changmin's home is not far from the theatre, but it's up a set of hidden stairs and across a rooftop and through two sets of intricately locked doors. 

"Not the easiest place to get to," Sunwoo says, leaning against the wall as Changmin unlocks the last set of doors. 

"I did say I'd tell you my secrets," Changmin says, dimple showing. He opens the door. "So this is one." 

The rooms are clean and well lit, but otherwise unremarkable. But the view across the city is stunning. They can see all the way to the palace, all the way to the river and the forest too. From here, the city is beautiful. "Wow," Sunwoo says, eloquent as ever. "Wow." 

"I like it. And there's room enough for a second person, you know," Changmin says casually, pretending to look at something on the bookshelf. "If you wanted to live here for a while. By any chance."

He only has to consider the offer for a moment.

"Yeah," Sunwoo says. Maybe the shadow isn't fully lifted yet, maybe it will never be, but this - this is a start. "I think I do."

*

Haknyeon wakes in the night and finds light coming from the other room. Yawning, he gets up and pads out of the bedroom, to find Sangyeon still working through a stack of papers. 

"I thought this new regime was meant to give us less work to worry about, not more," Haknyeon says, taking the seat beside him and giving the papers a most unimpressed look. "Can't this wait for tomorrow?" 

"I've just got to make a few more notes," Sangyeon mutters, dipping his pen into the inkpot - only to find Haknyeon has taken it and is holding it over his head.

"Go to sleep!" Haknyeon says. He snatches the pen from Sangyeon's hand for good measure before putting both items away. "You can do this in the morning. And remember we're heading southwards the day after tomorrow to find more witnesses. Think you can do that if you're asleep in the saddle? Think I'm going to pick you up if you fall off your horse?"

He says all this while pushing and prodding Sangyeon out of his chair and towards the bedroom. 

"Yes sir, no sir, yes sir," Sangyeon says, rolling his eyes, starting to strip out of his clothes.

By then Haknyeon's already back in bed, eyes closed, as though asleep. He doesn't stir when Sangyeon joins him, his chest warm against Haknyeon's back.

"What would I do without you?" Sangyeon says, fond but also amused.

"Suffer," Haknyeon says promptly, and pretends not to smile when Sangyeon laughs.

*

Youngjae paces the corridor. Up and down, up and down, up and down... 

"Come in if you're coming in, go away if you're not," Jaehyun shouts from inside the room before someone shushes him hastily. Probably Joonyoung, Youngjae thinks.

But still, still, Youngjae can't quite bring himself to move.

After a moment, he hears footsteps approaching and then the door slides open. It's Juyeon. Of course it's Juyeon. He looks soft and sleepy and so handsome that all Youngjae can do is swallow.

"Are you coming in?" Juyeon says, patient, eyes crinkling up in a smile when Youngjae just nods. "Then come in." He takes Youngjae by the hand and leads him inside the darkened room lit only by moonlight, across the floor and over to the bed.

Juyeon lets go and slides back into the bed next to Jaehyun, who is half wrapped around Joonyoung. He leaves enough space for Youngjae, and pats the mattress with his hand. 

Gingerly, tentatively, his heart beating way too fast, Youngjae lies down beside Juyeon. After a moment he feels Juyeon shift, his arm curling around Youngjae's waist. "Is this alright?" Juyeon whispers, and Youngjae nods. 

For a long moment, there's no sound except their breath, quiet in the still night air.

"You know, we'll have an even bigger bed when we move into the palace," Jaehyun says suddenly. Joonyoung laughs and then there's a sound like someone being slapped on the arm. "What? I'm just saying."

"Go to sleep, hyung," Juyeon says, his voice disconcertingly close to Youngjae's ear. "Everyone just go to sleep."

"I just think it'll be a lot more comfortable," Jaehyun whispers loudly.

Youngjae snorts into the pillow. "Sure, hyung," he says. "Sure." 

But this one, he thinks, is just fine for now.

**Author's Note:**

> "The literal translation for the French phrase “Entre Chien et Loup” is Between Dog and Wolf. A French linguist would describe this as that time of day when the light is such that it becomes difficult to distinguish between a dog and a wolf, between friend and foe, between known and unknown." ([source](https://www.loftartists.org/archives/entre-chien-et-loup#:~:text=The%20literal%20translation%20for%20the,foe%2C%20between%20known%20and%20unknown.))
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/kpopliar) / [tumblr](http://popliar.tumblr.com/)


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